


Beyond the Rising Sun

by thesunburntscientist



Category: Batwoman (TV 2019), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon: CW DC TV Universe, Criminal Masterminds, DC Comics References, Drama & Romance, Epic Battles, F/F, Intrigue, Post-Canon, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:40:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23747740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesunburntscientist/pseuds/thesunburntscientist
Summary: A re-envisioning of Season 5, from 5x16 onward. Under the looming threat of Leviathan, Lena Luthor teams up with Kate Kane and Kara Zor-El to bring down Lex once and for all. As the tangled web Leviathan has spun starts to unravel, Lena's endeavors force her to grapple with the undercurrent that has always existed between her and Kara. Told in an atmospheric setting involving the intrigue and machinations of the League of Shadows, Gotham's criminal underbelly, and Kryptonian lore, what comes is a collision of a Luthor and a Super that brings them closer than either dared imagine possible.
Relationships: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 84
Kudos: 215





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my attempt to reimagine the remainder of Supergirl's fifth season, and beyond. I pick up after the events of 5x16, everything up until that point will be treated as canon. Narrative perspective will alternate between Kara and Lena and will focus on how both characters deal with the repercussions of their falling out, the choices they have both made henceforth, and how they find their way back to each other. The romantic aspect of their relationship will be a slow build and hopefully culminate in a much more satisfactory and compelling way than the show is (or seems to be) offering its viewers. 
> 
> However, I feel I should flag--if you're looking for a work focused exclusively on Lena and Kara's relationship, this might not be for you. Rather, I integrate that into a larger, more sweeping story set in the DC comics universe, focusing on Leviathan, the League of Shadows, and what these enigmatic villains are all working towards. I will be including characters from other DC shows, predominantly Batwoman, but perhaps some of the villains from Arrow. There will also be references to other canon elements of the DC Universe, some of which haven't been seen on the CW, but have definitely been explored in other major films. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the work, and any comments/constructive criticism/Kudos are always welcome and appreciated.
> 
> You can catch me, and some of my original work and general goings-on, here: thesunburntscientist.tumblr.com

**Orbiting**

**Luthor—**

There’s a quietness surrounding the gravesite. A stillness. Borne from something sacred. Something ancient. Sorrow that has known infinite bearers. For Lena Luthor, it feels like memory.

From a distance, Lena watches the Danvers bury their father. They stand close, heads bowed, circled in a field of tombstones. Forlorn, familiar. Lena stands soaking in that stillness, her own memories of death hovering close. They group hasn’t seen her, nor will they see her. The space between them is purposeful. Dressed in black, face partway covered by large sunglasses, she stands somewhat hidden behind a hedge and cluster of trees. The rituals of burial flickering between the boughs and leaves obscuring her from view.

At the glimpse of a certain Super, Lena feels the ribs in her chest grip a little tighter around the organ beating behind them. It’s still there, even after all this time. That pull to her, like gravity. Even at this distance, Lena feels her heart throw up its tired defenses, digs a grave deep in her chest and puts Kara there, never to be mourned. She will not grieve her loss. She will not.

A glorious lie.

Beyond, Kara’s sister begins to speak as a coffin sinks into the earth, though Lena cannot make out the words. Solemn, she shifts closer to trees, watching. Three weeks ago, Alex Danvers had come to her in Luthorcorp’s headquarters, looking for what exactly, Lena still wasn’t sure. Absolution. Hope. Maybe just clarity.

The agent had slipped in through her office door, unannounced, uninvited. Lena rose from her chair as if scalded, heart thundering. Panicking, her eyes flew first through her office’s interior glass walls, searching for the blue-eyed, caped accomplice that was usually right on Alex’s heels. When she realized Alex came alone, her gaze hardened, snapped to her assistant, who also stood, expression helpless. Jaw clenching, Lena’s attention finally shifted back to her guest, now standing firm, if a bit uneasy, by her coffee table.

“Please don’t fire her,” Alex requested, gesturing back towards Lena’s assistant outside.

The Luthor lifted her chin, frustrated by how cornered she felt. Ambushed on her own ground. “This is unexpected.”

Realizing Lena wasn’t going to toss her out, Alex stepped closer, surveying the office. Surgical in its austerity. Dark eyes traced the sparse desk, all the steel, the glass, the chill. Her gaze fell on a sculpture carved of black marble on the coffee table—two Greek Titans, locked in battle. “This office is a bit cold for you.”

Lena’s eyes flickered down to the sculpture, the struggle there, then returned to Alex. “I didn’t have much say. Why are you here?”

“We heard about your lab. The explosion. Kara was worried sick—we thought you might have been inside. Are you okay?”

A sarcastic huff of laughter escaped Lena. She resisted the urge to be petty. “I’m fine.”

“Was it sabotage?”

The sting of betrayal, still nestled there like a knife-wound between her shoulder blades, made Lena suspicious of her questions. The undercurrent of an agenda that could be there beneath the veneer of concern. Lena grappled with that suspicion. Suffocated it. This was an opportunity for her as well. “I set the charges myself,” she admitted to the agent. “I burned it down. It felt like the most appropriate, cathartic thing to do, at the time.”

“Cathartic?”

“Not that I need to explain myself to you, but…” Lena swallowed. She may not have had another opportunity to say her piece. This was it. So she straightened, look Alex Danvers levelly in the eye, and murmured, “I was so angry.”

The admission hung heavy. Swollen with the past, all of the regret, the torment. It made Alex go still, not having expected such honesty.

“And so…” Lena continued, “wounded. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that kind of betrayal. It exhumed ugly things in me, demons I thought I had mastered a long time ago. I lost myself in it. It was never my intention to harm anyone. But I let it consume me, and that’s on me. I am responsible for my own choices, and I’m taking steps to repair what I have done, find my way back. Burning the lab to the ground,” Lena shrugged, “felt like a start.”

“It should be you and Kara having this conversation, not me—”

“It doesn’t matter, as long as someone in your band of righteous vigilantes hears it.” The tone changed then. Ground that had softened with her candor suddenly re-hardened under Lena’s resolve. “I have only one last thing to say to Supergirl. It’s good you’re here, you can deliver my message to her—”

“Lena—”

“As long as our interests to preserve life on this planet, to protect innocent people, are aligned, then Supergirl will have no conflict with me. I’ll stay out of her way.”

A pained look washed over Alex’s face. Like she was watching something slip through her fingers, powerless to stop it. “She doesn’t want you to stay out of her way,” she begged, “She—”

“You can call this de-escalation, an olive branch, whatever you feel fits. But… as far as I’m concerned, the Kara Danvers I knew never existed. She was an alias, a half-truth.” Her eyes burned then. She blinked it away. The last part came out a whisper, “And what good is that?”

Alex took a step forward, a muted desperation in her eyes. “You belong with us, Lena.”

“Do I?” The Luthor gathered herself up, reached deep to swallow past the lump in her throat, the knotting of her stomach. “I know you’re here on Supergirl’s behalf to confirm that I have, officially and unequivocally, destroyed any remnant of Project _Non Nocere_ and ceased all work to further its objectives. I can confirm that. It’s over. As is this discussion.” Lena resumed her seat at her desk, brought up her email. “Jessica will show you out.”

She hadn’t seen Alex again until this moment, at month later, watching her bury her father. What she had told Alex, and through Alex, Supergirl, was true. It _was_ over. When she returned from her trip to the Luthorcorp prison, she had dropped _Non Nocere_. Dumped gasoline on the floor of her own lab and set fire to it. Sickened with guilt, sickened with how twisted her aims and means had become, she had buried and left behind the rotting carcass of good intentions, poisoned by betrayal and ambition. Watched it go up in flames set by her own hand. How she would ever make up for it, earn redemption, felt Sisyphean, almost unachievable. But her brilliance, and her defiance, drove her to start somewhere.

She was starting now. Here.

It starts here.

Lena doesn’t linger. As the Danvers sprinkle earth over the open ground, she slips away. Crosses the one-way road where her car idles and ducks into the backseat. Her driver shuts her inside, circles the car, and as he settles back behind the wheel, asks, “Where to, Miss Luthor?”

“The airport.”

The driver presses the ignition, and the Bentley’s engine purrs to life. They roll forward, gather speed. “Where are we jetting off to today?”

Lena’s eyes drag out her window. To the graves flickering by, tombstone after tombstone. A fitting image for the city she’s paying a visit. Shadowed, sepulchral.

“Gotham.”

##

**Zor-El—**

_Gotham._

She knew she heard it.

Eyes closed, Kara Zor-El stands on a narrow road between the tombstones, beside a couple of sycamore trees, already rusting with autumn. She can still smell it, just faintly. Chanel, and below that, jasmine. Senses reaching out, tracing the imprints, the ripples. The atoms in the air, still shifting, settling, where Lena had stood. She sends her hearing out farther, out of the cemetery, past the intersection, down the highway. Seven miles away, she catches it—her heartbeat. Out of a million patterns, Kara could pick it out. It’s always so steady. So resilient.

She’d caught it earlier that morning as well. Inside the chapel—it had arrived quietly, hovered just on the edges. At first Kara thought she was imagining it; when she turned to scan the pews, she saw only family, the few friends, not the pair of familiar eyes, green as sea glass. But as the eulogies were spoken, the prayers offered, the heartbeat under it had remained. It became louder when Kara went outside with the procession, and there it remained, beating, as they buried Jeremiah. It had made Kara tremble. Knowing she was there. Just out of eyesight. Just out of reach. 

She opens her eyes. A cool breeze tousles her blonde hair. Sends a trail of leaves tumbling down the road. Yet again the Luthor found a way to work herself into Kara’s thoughts, like a splinter, like a salve. A remembered place, both soothing and searing, at once. It makes her want to howl. Encase her heart in red kryptonite, for just a moment’s relief. To forget.

“Kara, the car’s here, are you—what are you looking at?”

Alex appears at her shoulder. Dark sunglasses hide eyes Kara knows shine too brightly with grief, as if encased in glass.

Kara is slow to respond. When she does, all she says is: “She was here.”

“Who?”

“Lena.” Alex straightens, eyes scanning the foreground, looking. “She’s gone now.”

“Are you sure it was her?”

Kara fixes Alex with a knowing look. Her sister knows her abilities, knows the senses. So heightened. So exact. And with Lena, there would be no mistake.

Alex seems to realize this as well. Shifting on her feet, she nods. “She didn’t… come say hello.”

Dipping her head, Kara adjusts her glasses, trying to remain steady. “No, she didn’t.”

“Then, why come at all?”

“Because.” She stops, not quite sure how to explain it. The only other memories Kara possesses that feel this serrated, that are so exquisitely painful she can rarely stand to visit them, are her memories of Krypton. The warmth, the light, the feeling of home. The only memories that will bring her to her knees—those of home, and those of Lena. “It’s still _Lena,_ ” she tells Alex.

Her sister’s intuition flickers. Picks up on sorrow she hasn’t seen surface in Kara since they were children. “You have to stop beating yourself up about this,” she murmurs gently. “You did what you thought was right. It wasn’t manipulative, it wasn’t malicious. It only came from a place of love and protectiveness.”

“I want to go after her,” Kara whispers, feeling that familiar wave, the tension, the vibration, in preparation to run. The way it makes her shake as she tries to stop it.

“I know you do, but we need you to stay here.”

_Stay._ Kara pulls in a deep breath, her sister’s words pouring through her, easing that tension. “I know.” She faces Alex. “I will. I’m sorry, I’m being so selfish.”

“Hey,” Alex soothes, running a hand along Kara’s arm. “It’s okay. You didn’t know she’d show up.” Eyes dipping down to Kara’s right hand, a wincing kind of smile pulls at the corners of her mouth. “I think you’ve cracked your screen.”

That snaps Kara out of it briefly. She lifts her hand, sees the fresh spiderweb of cracked glass on a too-new iPhone and sighs. “Perfect.”

A pair of footsteps draws their attention, and Kara is taken aback to see Brainy approaching them. He’s dressed soberly, a plain black suit and tie. He looks hesitant when his eyes rest on Alex, who has stiffened beside Kara.

“Pardon my intrusion,” he says, stopping before them.

“That’s okay,” Kara replies, though her sister looks displeased.

“I apologize for my timing in telling you this—but I needed to speak with you in person: Lex has a meeting next Wednesday. In Amman.”

It’s not the subject either one of them had been expecting. Kara’s surprise is reflected in Alex’s voice when she clarifies, “Amman, _Jordan_?”

“That is correct. The meeting is with a woman named Miranda Tate. This woman is… significant, for it seems she does not exist.”

A gust of wind sighs past them, tugs at their clothes, their suspicions.

“Doesn’t exist?” clarifies Alex, again.

“I have scoured every resource, and found nothing on her. She has no birth certificate, she has no death certificate. No identification number. No bank accounts, tax records, or assets. There is nothing _tangible_ that I can attach to her. She might as well be a ghost.”

It’s Kara who gets there first. Her head tilts as she follows Brainy’s line of reasoning. “You think she could be a lead on Leviathan?”

“I believe she could _be_ Leviathan.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Alex accuses quietly, folding her arms across her chest.

“Because I am meant to tell you this. I would strongly suggest you find a way of getting a pair of eyes on that meeting.” Brainy leaves them standing there, staring after him.

“Now’s not the time or place to discuss this,” Alex says after a beat, turning to Kara, “but I think we’re going to Jordan next week.” Kara nods, cinching the belt of her coat a little tighter.

Alex moves off, but turns back when she notices Kara hasn’t moved. “You coming?”

Kara nods, grimacing. “I’ll be right there. I just need a minute.” With an unsure look, her sister finally nods and retreats back toward the small gathering of people outside the chapel. 

For a long time, Kara stands still as stone. Alone. Wind tosses her hair, slides past the bare skin of her neck, her fingertips. Another granite statue in a graveyard. She wills herself to breathe, to master the coiling of her muscles, the pump of her blood, the scorching desire to run, to _run,_ and catch that sedan she can still hear humming in the distance. Carrying Lena away.

It would only take seconds. Just seconds to catch her.

She stands locked in battle with herself. Lungs too tight, throat constricting, wrestling down that howl that scratches, claws, reaches for release. She feels she may crack under the pressure of all she contains and so forces her eyes closed. Hands contracting into steel fists, shaking with the effort to stay put. To ignore every instinct screaming at her to go after Lena. To quiet that hopeful race in her heart, and instead just let it ache.

Eyes closed, she loosens her grip on the sound of Lena’s car, lets it fade, grow dimmer. And then she releases it altogether. When she can no longer hear it, Kara opens her eyes. Stares down the empty road.

“Come back,” she whispers to the morning cold, the rumbling thunderclouds on the rim of the world.

“Come back.”

##

**Luthor—**

Gotham is cold. A freeze lies thick over the brick path, the rod iron fences, hangs like tears from tree branches and the old gothic lamps of Lincoln Park. Lena shivers as she paces, watching her breath leave her lips. Around her, the park breathes. Sleeps. The hush of snowfall. A pair of foxes slink across the path, fix her under a yellow stare. Smell the apprehension, then disappear again. Snow drifts down, settles on her eyelashes, the fur of her coat. Melancholic, fleeting.

_Where is she._

A few more minutes of pacing, and then the groan of snow underfoot. Lena turns. From a gap in the trees, she appears like an answer, like an apparition. Kate Kane.

Lena lifts her chin as the young woman steps under the light of a lamp. “Thank you for meeting me,” she says.

Kate’s lips twitch, a grin and a grimace. “Curiosity got the better of me.” She takes a seat next to Lena on a park bench, gazes upward toward the tree branches, tangled in each other, only silhouettes in Gotham’s midnight darkness. “This rendezvous feels very… Cold War,” Kate comments, surveying their isolated meeting spot. The bleak cold.

Lena nods. “I apologize for the theatrics, but what I need to discuss with you is… sensitive.”

“What is it?”

A slight pause.

Then, “My brother.” Lena watches Kate’s eyebrows rise, a topic that was clearly unexpected. “He’s playing a game. One I am a part of, and yet cannot understand. I can’t trace the service, can’t see the adversaries, the moves. I’m not even quite sure of the rules, or what victory looks like. But what I do know, is I have to play. Because if I don’t, a triumph for Lex could spell disaster on global scale.” Lena lets that sink in before she adds, voice dropping lower, “I also know, that if I am going to win this game, I need allies. Friends. Especially ones that know darkness, patience, how to operate from the shadows. Can watch and wait from the quiet places until the time comes, like a bat.”

Silence spreads, loaded, coiled. When Kate’s eyes shift to Lena’s, they contain no denial, no contradiction, but there is no confirmation there either. Instead she stares, unblinking, at the Luthor, a haunt to her gaze that surprises Lena.

“I know Bruce was the Bat,” Lena says softly. “I’ve known since I was an adolescent.” Her eyes drop to Kate’s hands. “That watch you’re wearing, it’s not a watch. I designed it. It’s a computer, one that contains a predictive algorithm for calculating the quickest escape routes through buildings, alleyways, main streets, based on the detection of global positioning systems in other nearby devices. I wrote the code, built the hardware.” Kate’s expression hasn’t shifted apart from blue eyes that have grown infinitesimally wider. “I gave the prototype and model schematics to Wayne Enterprise’s research department,” Lena continues, “and to Batman, as a gift when I was seventeen. I had a bit of a crush.” A puff of steam escapes Lena’s lips as she huffs a laugh, remembering. “Data and instructions relay into the ear piece you’re wearing.” She tilts her head, a wry smile touching her lips. “Talk about Cold War theatrics.”

“You know Bruce was Batman.”

“And I know that you’ve taken up the cape.”

Kate swallows. Lena watches the debate, watches the vigilante weigh whether it would be worth denying it, to at least put up a fight. In the end, it seems Kate Kane doesn’t like to waste time either. Reaching up to her right ear, she plucks out a small, black earpiece. Flashes it towards Lena. “You could have made these smaller.”

The Luthor lets the barest of smiles touch her lips. “That was cutting edge, at the time.”

“What do you want?” Kate asks in a hushed tone.

“I want to know everything you know about an organization that calls itself Leviathan.”

A flash of recognition. Kate’s brow furrows over calculating eyes.

Lena’s gaze lifts, scans the foreground of Lincoln Park, still as stone. “I know Bruce contended with Leviathan before he disappeared. I know it’s some kind of criminal organization, with a thousand eyes and a thousand faces. Shrouded in secrecy. Lex is desperate to find them.”

“Why?” asks Kate, hands tight on the edge of their bench.

“That’s the game,” Lena replies. “I don’t know why. What Lex’s endgame is… I can’t even begin to guess. I’m not sure if he even knows yet. But I do know that he’s digging. Which means I have to dig deeper, and _faster._ To do that, I need your help.” Shaking her head, Lena clenches her teeth. Muses aloud, “Uncovering Lex’s interest in Leviathan might not even be the most important puzzle. How and why Leviathan caught his attention— _that_ should be my focus, the larger threat.” She turns back to Kate, who processes all this behind a startled expression.

“Bruce must have archived his research somewhere,” Lena tells her, “kept some kind of record of Leviathan’s movements, their members, fingerprints they’ve left in capital flows, arms deals, unexplained events. Anything.”

It’s a long time before Kate says anything. When she does, her voice is a wick above a whisper: “He has journals. They’re back at Wayne Manor. I’m still working my way through them, but I’ve seen Leviathan mentioned a few times. From what I understand so far, they’re a splinter group of the League of Shadows.”

_Already useful._

Lena had heard of this League of Shadows, a criminal underworld of assassins led by a man named Ra’s al Ghul. But that was as far as her knowledge went.

“Ra’s al Ghul,” Lena murmurs.

Kate nods, slowly rubs gloved hands together, thinking. “I can bring the journals to you in National City,” she offers. “And do some digging myself. If Leviathan has roused the interest of Lex Luthor…”

Her implication hovers heavily over them, like a sawblade ready to drop. If an alliance formed between her brother and Leviathan, if the resources and interests of those two sinister parties merged, it could bring about a reckoning unlike the world has ever seen. The possibility is enough to turn Lena’s stomach. “The first moves have been made,” she sighs, “and we’re already on the back foot. But if we work together, we might be able to get ahead of this, whatever it may be.”

“Why me? Why not Kara?”

The name is like a bruise, one Lena had forgotten until something rough pressed up against it. A dull ache blooms somewhere in her chest, threatens to snatch away her breath. A deep intake of Gotham’s icy air is enough to quiet that wound, for now.

“Supers have an inconvenient rule…” Lena hesitates, then growls, “about killing.” Kate stiffens beside her, just slightly, and so Lena turns to her and says firmly, “I don’t want to kill my brother. I’m not a killer. But Supers think in black and white; I think the world is a little more complex than that. I’ll do what I have to do to protect innocent people from Lex, and if in the end, that means killing him—” she fixes Kate beneath a stare like kryptonite, “—I don’t want to have a big philosophical debate about it. The Waynes, _Bruce,_ at least, felt similarly.” Lena watches Kate, who despite having relaxed somewhat, still wears a tense expression. “Acknowledged that there are grey areas.”

Kate blinks. Muscles in her jaw tightening. “There are grey areas,” she agrees quietly.

“We understand each other, then.”

Kate nods. “We do.” Rising from the bench, Kate shoves her gloved hands into the pockets of her jacket. “I’ll be in touch.” Lena also rises as she watches the vigilante retreat. Just as Kate’s about to disappear from view, she pauses, turns and lifts her wrist. “You really designed this?” she asks, flashing the watch beneath the streetlamp.

“I did.”

Kate looks impressed. “So you really are as smart as Lex.”

Lena lifts her chin, shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat. “Smarter,” she corrects. “I had a Ph.D. in particle physics from MIT by the time I was twenty-five.”

And then she departs, leaving Kate Kane staring after her, a lone silhouette shrouded in the gloomy yellow lamplight.

##

**Zor-El—**

Kara lands hard on the Tower’s balcony. Rattles the windows with the impact. Alex glances up from her computer, watches the Super stomp into their headquarters, eyes narrowing at the surly expression on her face. Kara knows that critical look—she had made the flight from Catco to the Tower without changing into her supersuit. Reckless, but she doesn’t quite care.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Kara says. “I’m under a deadline for Andrea, so…”

From a corner of the Tower, J’onn approaches the spherical table in the middle of the room. Kara catches the quick look exchanged between her sister and the Martian, feels her brows draw downward suspiciously. “The day of Jeremiah’s funeral,” J’onn says, crossing his arms over his chest, a stance Kara has come to know means he’s bracing for something, “Lena Luthor flew to Gotham.”

The name stings. Makes her take a sharp, irritated breath. “Is that all?”

“She was only there for a few hours.” His tone is suggestive, like he’s implicating Lena in something.

“So she went to Gotham,” Kara snaps, more sharply than necessary. “She has half a dozen businesses headquartered in Gotham.”

J’onn flashes Alex another look, then retreats towards his desk, shuffles a few papers, and returns with a large photograph. He slides it across the table towards Kara.

The subject makes her go cold. It’s a photo of Lena. Bundled in a huge coat, she sits on a park bench in deep conversation with a familiar vigilante with a strange attachment to bats. Kate Kane. Kara blinks, confused at first. What on earth would Lena be doing with Kate Kane? But when her eyes lift to J’onn, and Alex hovering nearby, her wariness sinks into resentment. _Angry_ resentment.

“What is this?” Kara’s jaw clenches. When she gets no reply from either of them, she pushes, “When was this taken?” The silence deepens, stiff with tension. Alex won’t meet Kara’s eyes, and so she leans over the table, gripping its edges. “ _Tell me_ this was taken a long time ago. Before the Crisis. Before I told Lena my secret. Before _all of it._ ”

“It was taken a couple nights ago,” J’onn replies coolly.

Alex approaches the table finally, her expression placating. “Kara, listen to me, this was for research purposes—”

“Research?” Kara growls. She can feel it roiling, the heat in her skull, expanding, deepening, drawing into her eyes. “I told you to _back off_ Lena _._ I told you we had no grounds to justify monitoring her anymore. She said it was over, that she was finding a way back to the person we all know she is.” Kara snatches the photograph off the table, brandishes it at J’onn like a smoking gun. “This is wrong. You are targeting her without motive! Did she see you?”

“Of course not. Did you happen to notice the other person in the image?”

“I don’t care if she’s with Kate!” Kara explodes. “I— _will not—_ be part of this!” In less than a blink, she’s across the room. Seizes the Tower’s refrigerator and hurls it into the far wall, where it explodes into plastic debris from the force of her fury.

Alex leaps backward, eyes wild. “Kara!”

“You _swore_ to me you would lay off!” Kara accuses, pointing at her sister. “You promised to stop tailing Lena. This is a shameful abuse of power, and witch-hunt!”

“Accuse me of abuse of power one more time,” Alex dares her, her expression as hard as rock. Kara stands fuming, but she catches the defiant look in her sister’s eyes. The resolution. “We think she might be working independently of Lex. She might even be working _against_ him. And if she is, in any way we can, we want to help her. But in order to do that, we have to figure out what she’s doing. And that’s very difficult to do when our relationship with her has circled the drain.”

This makes Kara pause. She narrows her eyes, chest still heaving, but the wildfire of fury scorching through her veins dims slightly.

“That’s what we’re trying to determine—that’s why J’onn followed her to Gotham. From what we’ve observed, we think she’s squaring off with her brother, positioning herself as his main adversary, and for some reason, she’s enlisted Kate’s help.”

“What’s she doing, then?” Kara asks. “What’s the move against Lex?”

“Great question, Kara,” Alex bites, fixing her under a glare. “How would _you_ go about figuring that out?”

Shaking her head, Kara starts pacing, not liking Alex’s implication. “Not like this,” she defies, pointing to the photo. “Sneaking around behind Lena’s back is precisely why I can’t just go and ask her what she’s planning. We cannot follow her. We follow Lex and _only_ Lex. If we can figure out what he’s planning, we can deduce how Lena is trying to stop him. That’s how it has to be. Otherwise, I’m out.” Kara straightens under the finality of the lines she’s just drawn. “Like I said, I won’t be part of this.”

Striding off, Kara retreats to the balcony, leaving her sister and J’onn to watch her distantly. The crisp autumn air clears her head. Tilting her head towards the sun, the warmth regenerates her, her cells drinking the light like water. Slowly, she calms. And with that calm, comes disappointment. Deep, enduring disappointment, in herself. She had overacted. Badly.

Just as Kara is about to return to apologize, she turns to find Alex already approaching, wearing an expression torn between both worry and annoyance. A clash only a loved one could wear.

“I’m sorry about the,” Kara rubs the back of neck, ashamed, “refrigerator.” When Alex just stares at her, Kara adds, “I don’t have an explanation. I’m just sorry.”

Alex comes to her side, leans against the balcony railing with her. “I know you’re protective of Lena, and we are honoring your wishes and hers. J’onn followed her to Gotham because we’re very concerned about what Lex might have her involved in, how dangerous it could be for her. Especially if she’s going it alone.”

Kara nods, rubs her forehead as if to massage out the shame she still feels at her outburst.

“I know you’re miserable,” Alex adds, more quietly, “I wish I could help you. But your sadness is coming out in rage. And sometimes, it’s scary as hell.”

A long beat. And then, even quieter, “I know.”

There’s a long pause in conversation, a time to breathe. In that space, Kara knows there is no other presence on this planet that could soothe her except for Alex’s. Gratitude swells in her chest, and she finally flashes her sister a withdrawn smile.

At this, Alex shifts the topic slightly. “We actually called you here to let you know that we might have an opportunity to get eyes on Lex, and maybe some of Lena’s countermoves. There’s going to be a gala tomorrow night, held at one of Luthorcorp’s hotels in the city. It’s some kind of fundraiser—public-private partnership sort of thing. But we think it might be a disguise for another, more important, meeting. With the Leviathan contacts Lex has made.”

Kara glances over at her. “Miranda Tate?”

“Maybe… From Brainy’s description, unlikely. Either way, we’re going to attend as guests. J’onn got tickets through contacts at NCPD, given he’s technically contracted with the city. And I think you should come too.”

At first, Kara hesitates. A glamorous event teeming with National City’s most violent criminals, both from underworld slums and high-rise corner offices, sounds like the last thing she wants to attend. But when she thinks about how she could help Alex and J’onn, how she could at least be there to protect them should things move sideways, she decides it could at least be a welcome distraction. “Okay.”

“Good. But Kara, this anger of yours, this unpredictability, you better lock it up before tomorrow night,” Alex warns, not with cruelty, but there is a note of worry, “because Lena will be there, too.”

Every muscle in Kara’s body stiffens. Her eyes dart to Alex’s, who watches the Super’s relative calm melt away into an uncertain kind of panic. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”

“It’s a Luthor event,” Alex points out. “She’s hosting it with her brother. I think she’s trying to put a face to some of these Leviathan operatives, too.”

“Are you sure I have to be there?” A cowardly question, one Kara hates. But the idea of crossing paths with Lena at the moment is enough to make her feel like she’s hurtling towards the planet at breakneck speed, out of control, in complete freefall.

Alex looks sympathetic. “You’re going to have to face her at some point. It’s kind of inevitable. You two orbit each other too closely to never cross paths. And what better environment to stage a reunion than at a gala?” Kara shoots her a pitiful look, and so an encouraging arm encircles Kara’s shoulders. “I’ll be right there with you. And besides, even if you have to endure some awkwardness, and maybe even some anger, won’t it be worth it if in the end, it leads us towards helping Lena?”

“Yes,” Kara relents. “Yes, that would make it worth it.” She meets her sister’s eyes. “I’ll be there.”

Satisfied, Alex pushes away from the railing and heads back for the stairs leading into the Tower. “I’ll come by your place for dinner tonight, okay?” When she gets a solemn nod, she disappears back into the building, leaving Kara up on the balcony alone.

She feels like a livewire, every nerve sparking with electricity, like every atom in her body has just become unstable. There would be many attendees at this gala that were threats. And yet it wasn’t the Leviathan operatives, the kingpins, the corrupt government officials deep in the Luthors’ pockets, or even Lex himself that made Kara swallow roughly. Grip the railing just tightly enough to leave a slight imprint of her fingers. It was knowing she would see Lena Luthor for the first time in months.

She lifts her face towards the sun again, trying to draw strength.

If only her heart was made of steel, too.


	2. Collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't have too much time to proofread, so apologies for any grammar errors/repeated words, etc etc
> 
> I wrote the last "Zor-El" section to the Man of Steel's "Krypton's Last", about 1:25 in, if you're curious and into writing music.

**Collision**

**Zor-El—**

National City smears by. Glowing neon lights that blot like watercolors through the raindrops on the windows. Kara sits perfectly still in the back of the cab, eyes tracing their trails on the glass as they make their way to the Ritz Carlton, and the dazzling gala the Luthors were hosting that evening. Hands clasped in her lap, her heart hammers so hard in her chest she’s surprised the other occupants in the cab can’t hear it.

Next to her, Alex is dressed in an elegant black dress. Kelly Olsen sits in the front seat, chatting amicably with William Dey, who sits in the back on Alex’s opposite side, statuesque in a crisp blue suit. Though Kara had initially resisted the idea of bringing a date, Alex ultimately swayed her.

“It won’t be a _date,_ ” she had argued. “We need as many helpful eyes as we can get. Since William is already on Leviathan’s trail, this is an opportunity to bring him on board with us.”

“I don’t want him to get the wrong idea,” Kara had protested weakly.

“Then be clear with him. The date is just a cover to get him in the door. Once we’re inside, you don’t have to speak to him again if that’s how you feel.”

“Well, I don’t want him to think I _hate_ him. I just don’t…”

“Want to date him,” Alex supplied. “He’s an investigative reporter who’s gone undercover in far worse settings than a Luthor gala. He’ll be professional.”

And so far, he had been nothing beyond just friendly. Although Kara _had_ noticed his eyes linger a beat longer than platonic on her appearance. She couldn’t really blame the guy, though—she’d nearly emptied her bank account on a floor-length Dior dress in the deepest blue. An extravagance that framed the lean muscles in her back, made impossibly blue eyes even bluer. When she’d left her building to hop in the waiting cab, even Alex had looked taken aback as she ducked into the empty seat beside her. Muttered something about this being the ‘opposite of blending in’. But the dress wasn’t for them. It certainly wasn’t for William, or any stranger. It was for the one person she both desperately needed to see and was so afraid to see, she hadn’t been able to eat anything all day.

When the cab pulls into the grand drive of the Ritz, Kara waits as Kelly pays the driver, then, nerves already sparking, she steps out. Inside, the hotel dazzles, alive with the activity of patrons kicking off their Saturday nights. The sound of toasting glasses comes from the bar, where guests sip, smile, flirt, swap stories, steal glances. Kara follows Alex and Kelly as they wind their way to the elevators, where others wait in pairs or small groups to make the journey to the top floor, where all the glamor of a Luthor fundraiser awaits.

After giving their names to hotel security, Kara piles into an elevator with William, Kelly, Alex and a handful of others. A valet punches in the code for the top floor. Beside her, William is telling her something about the _London Times_ , but she doesn’t absorb a word of it. It’s taking all of her concentration just keep her breathing even. When the elevator dings on the hotel’s top floor, Kara’s heartbeat drums so hard and so fast in her chest, it feels like it’s only one heartbeat behind collapsing. And then doors open.

A wave of sound pours into the elevator. Warm music, the sound of conversation, high and humming, forks on china plates. With a smile, William gestures Kara follow Alex out of the elevator and into the ballroom. Eyes widening, Kara takes a deep breath, trying to absorb it all. Crystal chandeliers hang from a vaulted ceiling, amplify the sound of the jazz band’s crooning singer. The far wall is entirely glass, overlooking the distant, sparkling lights of National City, like an upside-down night sky. Waiters slip between chatting groups of donors, government officials, heiresses, and entrepreneurs, bearing champagne, hors d'oeuvres, silverware.

Large art sculptures stand gleaming and elegant on the polished floor of the hotel ballroom, around which stand admirers and socialites, enjoying the latest exhibition from the city’s modern art museum, briefly moved to this venue to add a bit of culture to this already-extravagant event. Kara can’t help but smile slightly. That would have been Lena’s touch.

Kelly and Alex turn to her, laughing somewhat unsurely at the splendor of it all. But Kara doesn’t return the smile; instead, she listens. Deep below the gala’s hum, she finds it—the pattern of Lena Luthor’s heartbeat. Even, at first; at rest. But then, an uptick. Through clinking glasses, the glitter of laughter and conversation, velvet jazz, Kara notices the dull thud of a heartbeat that beats a little faster when she steps further into the room. It takes every bit of strength to not look Lena’s way yet, to let herself catch her breath first, settle into the atmosphere before the inevitable collision.

“I’ll get some champagne,” William announces, rubbing his hands together. “Four?”

All three women nod, and the reporter hurries off to grab the drinks. Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Kara mutters, “I wish champagne had _some_ kind of relaxing effect on me.” Her eyes flash towards a group of socialites milling around the nearest sculpture. Lena isn’t among them. Relief and a disappointment knot in her stomach, a strange sensation. She turns to her sister. “Are you sure this is a good idea, my being here?”

“You’ve seen Lena?” Alex concludes. A sister’s intuition.

Kara’s gaze drops. “Not yet.”

“Hey,” Alex soothes, ducking to try and catch Kara’s eye, “it’s going to be fine.”

“Rao, this is agony,” Kara whispers, eyes darting. “I should leave. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Kara Danvers, where is that _steel_ I know sits in that spine? She isn’t a world-killer. She isn’t the Anti-Monitor. And she isn’t Lex.” Alex’s voice softens. “She’s Lena Luthor, your friend.”

Kara’s focus shifts, unable to look at her sister in such a moment of weakness. Her eyes move over the crowd, unconsciously, instinctively, searching. And then, she sees her, and when she does, everything else fades.

It’s as if Lena can sense her gaze, for she turns in Kara’s direction, emerald eyes tracing the outlines of different people, different faces, until finally, they land on Kara.

Contact. Collision. Kara’s hearing, usually everywhere, pauses. Instead, like the tide, it retreats. Pulling in, pulling in, until all her focus is here, transfixed, on Lena.

Seeing her again, Kara remembers the feeling of drowning underwater. A childhood memory of the sea, before her powers had fully developed. She had plunged wholeheartedly into the waves, not understanding the undertow, the magnificent power this planet’s moon held over the current. Knowing Lena sees her, that she has also gone still, Kara remembers being held under, only to surface briefly, gasping for air and then be slammed down again. That moment between swells, where she felt the relief of oxygen, only to be swallowed up again—she feels it here, watching Lena Luthor decide to make her way over, make contact. Kara’s lungs strain just standing there, and she feels herself pulled back into that undercurrent. Powerless, Kara watches her approach.

The Luthor is dressed in a three-piece black suit. Surgically tailored. Versace, unmistakably. Pressed, peaked, clasped, cuffed, and buttoned to her throat. It’s unlike her. For an evening of indulgences, of sliding conversation and all the perfumed pageantry of capitalism’s turbulent affair with government, it’s like she’s dressed herself in armor. As if the pressure of her role, the strain of isolation, the exhaustion of proving herself against her name, had heated, suffocated, crushed and then hardened her into a shard of obsidian. Encased in edges that could draw blood.

When Lena is in earshot, Kara doesn’t say hello, she doesn’t comment on her attire, or offer any other bland opening line. She wastes no time, asks the only thing she really wants to know as Lena edges closer.

“How have you been?”

It comes out a whisper, as though, if spoken just a decibel louder, Lena would have shied away.

The Luthor considers the question, her expression not warm, but it isn’t cold either. Some would have called it polite. Others, arrogant. Kara knows better, knows well that it isn’t either of those things. It’s the quiet, unreachable kind of lonely that runs so deep it almost can’t be detected. It makes Kara ache.

Lena comes about as close as two arms’ lengths, then stops. She nods faintly. “Fine.” A beat. “And you?”

A thousand answers rush up from Kara’s heart at the question. _Miserable. Anxious. Sleepless._ All of them too honest. All of them would make the door that Lena had just slightly opened, slam shut. But she can’t lie either, she can’t even summon a word like _good_ or _okay_ at the moment. So, instead, she settles for: “Distracted.”

The ambiguity registers, elicits the barest wince in sea-glass eyes. Kara sees it, the flicker of intuition in Lena’s expression. “I’m sorry to hear that,” the Luthor murmurs. Her eyes flicker to Kara’s right, and something seems to draw Lena out of their moment. “I was also very sorry to hear about your father, Alex,” Lena says, her voice more even now that she’s addressing the other Danvers hovering behind Kara.

“Oh,” Alex starts, thrown off, “I appreciate that, Lena.”

“I didn’t realize you both would be here.”

Kara’s vocal chords seem to have turned to stone, and so with a quick glance, Alex explains for her, “We’re here with NCPD. Our firm is contracted with the city, this is a great chance to build contacts.”

Lena swallows, tries to smile. “Well, I’ll let you get to it.” She glances off to her left, attention drawn towards a group of guests. When she looks back at Kara, she takes a steadying breath. “It’s nice to see you,” she murmurs. It’s an empty phrase usually deployed to dodge unwanted conversations, but when Kara searches Lena’s expression, she finds sincerity there. It makes her heart pound faster. That perhaps seeing Kara, while it hurt, also provided the Luthor some kind of relief.

“I wanted to tell you,” Kara hurries, lurching forward a few steps to stop her attempt to slip away.

Lena turns back. Lifts her chin. “What?”

“You could have come inside,” Kara tries, a hand lifting towards her former friend only to drop again, knowing its futility. “It would have been a comfort to see you.”

Another uptick in Lena’s heartrate. It’s the only sign that gives her away. The Luthor’s expression remains perfectly controlled, locked in a practiced indifference that Kara knows comes from a childhood spent constantly withstanding manipulation.

“What are you talking about?”

“Jeremiah’s funeral.” A tense pause, building up. “You were outside.”

Confusion reflects in Lena’s eyes, the first emotion that’s managed to wrangle itself free from its captor’s death grip. “You saw me?”

Kara swallows. “I heard you.”

Another glimmer of confusion, until Lena takes a slow, deductive breath, and Kara knows what she’s realized—superhearing. The CEO blinks. Twice. Kara watches her wrestle with a response, and then--

“I didn’t want my appearance to cause more distress in an already painful setting,” the Luthor replies levelly, like she’s in a boardroom. Like she’s speaking to a stranger. Kara had absorbed harder punches from world-killers.

“Like I said,” Kara says, still reaching, “it would have been a comfort. Not a distress.” She pauses, swallows hard, tries to take a breath, but it’s like her lungs are simultaneously full and also clawing for air. A choking sensation. “ _Never_ a distress,” she manages to whisper.

She hadn’t intended for it to get so painful so quickly. Especially here, in such a public setting. She had only wanted to see Lena again, even if from a distance. She had only wanted to hear Lena say her name.

“Miss Luthor,” an older man suddenly intervenes, startling them both. Cheeks already red with drink, he gestures to one of the sculptures. “You must tell me how you got the art museum to lend these to you. They are just spectacular!”

Nodding at the man, Lena catches Kara’s eyes. “I have to…”

“Of course,” Kara concedes, gesturing weakly with an arm. “Yeah.” Lena nods again, face tight, and allows the investor to guide her towards a nearby sculpture.

As Lena walks away, her face resettling back into that mask of placating indulgence, Kara watches her go. She feels strangely suspended, not quite sure what to make of that first interaction. All she does know is that she grips her champagne glass so hard that Alex notices. Her sister places her hand on her forearm, a gentle warning in her eyes.

“Breathe,” Alex murmurs so quietly only Kara can hear.

“That was a train wreck.”

“It wasn’t.”

“It’s like I’m a stranger to her now. Or just forgotten.”

“Let’s get some appetizers,” Alex tries, “mingle with some other reporters. The distraction will help.”

Adjusting her glasses, Kara nods stiffly. Resists the urge to look over at Lena again, and instead, follows Alex over to Kelly and William, who stand chatting amicably with a group of young analysts from National City’s Education Supervisory Board.

Time slides by, both fast and slow. Kara tries to be engaged, tries to pay attention to the conversations they have. But if she thought she was distracted before, then she’s completely absent now. When she can’t take it anymore, Kara excuses herself for some air.

Stepping out onto the ballroom’s balcony, Kara sincerely considers leaving. The stars beckon her, the fresh breeze coming off the sea. For the moment, the clouds have broken. She could make it home in time before the rain returned. But her escape plans are interrupted when the balcony door opens again.

Turning, Kara freezes, eyes darting. Of all the people to step out on this balcony, it had to be Lena. The Luthor doesn’t notice her, though. Trapped, she watches the Luthor brace herself against the stone railing, head bowing as she takes several long breaths. Such exhaustion makes Kara want to go to her, ask if she’s all right, but she knows she can’t. Her past deceptions, her lies, prevent her getting to do that. There’s no way for her to slip back inside without Lena seeing her. So instead, Kara steels herself, takes a breath for the plunge, and clears her throat.

Lena whirls around, eyes flashing with surprise until they fall on Kara. Wrapping an arm about her waist, the Luthor glowers at her. “Jesus, Kara.”

“Sorry…” she says, spreading her hands. “I’m not trying to… be in your way.”

For a beat, it looks like the Luthor may leave, may flee back the way she came to escape the sharpness of how alone they are. The oppressive quiet. All Kara can do is watch her wrestle with the decision. Her eyes flash towards the door, then back to Kara. Settle there, torn. In the end, it something more base that keeps her rooted where she stands. Pride.

“So, are you here to keep an eye on me?” Lena inquires in a low tone, as if it’s already a given.

“I’m here to keep an eye on your brother.”

The Luthor crosses her arms, lifts her head imperiously. “I thought he and I were one in the same.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that what all this is?” the Luthor accuses, gesturing vaguely to the gala. “You’re here, Alex is here, one of my assistants saw J’onn phase into hotel serving staff on his way in. You’re here watching me.” Green eyes simmer in the glittering light. “Treating me like _any other villain._ ”

Words delivered coldly, shrewdly, on the edge of a knife made of kryptonite. They make Kara take a step back. “I didn’t—” she stumbles, confused, desperate, “you’re not a villain—I would never—”

“Aren’t I?” Lena scoffs. “That’s what you told me when we last spoke.”

A cold breeze sweeps over the balcony, ripples Kara’s dress as she grows still at Lena’s words. The last time they spoke all Kara had said, had practically begged, was for Lena to be careful. “In your office?” she asks, dazed.

Lena tilts her head, regarding her with mild suspicion. “At my apartment. Three weeks ago. You warned me that if I continued working with Lex, you’d treat me like any other villain.”

“I never came to your apartment. I would never call you a vill—”

“I don’t have to do this,” Lena growls. Shaking her head, she heads for the door, her expression wrought with exasperation, fury. And buried deeper there, the hurt of a wound that has refused to heal.

“Wait!” Before Kara even realizes what she’s doing, she’s across the balcony in less than a blink. Skirts right in front of Lena to block the door.

Lena reels back, knocked off-balance by the superspeeding Kryptonian desperate to stop her, and she casts out for something to hold onto. Instinctively, Kara’s arms go around her. One hand under an elbow, the other her waist, holding her. Wide eyes snap up to hers, shocked at first. But once Lena’s got her balance, fear quickly replaces it. The Luthor glances over at the large windows they stand in front of, leading back into a gala packed full of people. Packed full of witnesses.

“ _Careful_ ,” she whispers, eyes snapping back to her. So close Kara can see the flecks of gold, catch the hint of jasmine on each side of her throat.

Kara nods, realizing anyone could have seen, but she can’t find the will to care. Lena still hasn’t let go of her. They stand close. Breathing together. Sharing space, the warmth of their skin despite the evening chill. “I’m sorry,” Kara says, somewhat breathless at the sudden proximity, “please don’t go. I didn’t mean—Are you sure it was me that night?”

Realizing that Kara isn’t going to let her slip away, that this conversation isn’t over, Lena grits her teeth and leads the Super back behind a window blocked by enormous curtains. “It was you. Supersuit and all,” she replies once they’re out of view.

Memory riffling back, Kara searches Lena’s gaze, trying to recall. “Three weeks ago…” she murmurs. Then, it hits her. Her jaw tightens at the suspicion. “Three weeks ago, Tuesday?”

“What does it matter if it was a Tuesday, Kara? It was you!”

“No, no. It wasn’t. I mean. It was me, but it wasn’t. It _looked_ like me. God, that meddling, two-timing, fifth dimension-breaking _jerk_!” Her eyes lift to Lena again, who’s looking at her like she’s finally cracked. “It was Mxyzptlk.”

Lena blinks slowly. “What is that, Polish?”

“No, it’s a name. Mxyzptlk is a man from the fifth dimension. He’s a trickster. A shape-shifter. A royal pain in my ass. That Tuesday he came to me trying to make amends for past wrongs. When he left, he must have taken my form and visited you, thinking he was helping things.”

The barest of flinches. Only a slight tilt of the head, a twitch at one corner of Lena’s mouth. “Why would he know about you and me?” she asks quietly.

“Because, to make amends, he tried to help me go back in time so I could tell you my identity sooner than I did. He offered me the chance to fix my past mistakes and avoid losing you. We tried four alternate realities.” A flash of Lena falling into her arms, dead. Advancing on Kara, hatred burning in her eyes as brightly as a heart of kryptonite. Suffocating in an airless tank. All in such quick succession it makes Kara take a steadying breath. “He can take any form, including mine,” she tells the Luthor. “It wasn’t me on the balcony, it was Mxyzptlk. Lena, I would never call you a villain. You know that.”

“It did seem a little out of character,” she admits, letting her arms drop. Despite Kara’s efforts, this revelation doesn’t seem to have lent Lena much comfort. Instead, it makes her take a step backward, heavy-hearted. “Given our current state, I guess you decided not to change anything.”

 _Now,_ Kara thinks. _It has to be now._ Slowly, purposefully, Kara removes her glasses. Holds them at her side, and then—

“In every reality,” she begins, kneading conviction, _truth_ , into her voice, “where I changed something, you got hurt, or I lost you completely.” She falters, trying to read Lena’s eyes, green pools that watch her closely, a grip so desperate it paralyzes Kara. “And so, in the end,” she murmurs, “I decided it was better to have your hatred, then to not have you at all.”

Lena’s eyes grow bright. Too bright. Her lips part, breath sliding from her lungs at the rawness of Kara’s admission. There is the briefest instant, only a second, where Kara sees Lena again. Her Lena. She’s there, pressed up to the glass of the Luthor’s eyes, reaching, _reaching,_ for escape _._ In the space of a heartbeat, Lena’s eyes dip to Kara’s mouth, and then back up again. A familiar trail. It makes Kara lean forward, yielding to this silence between them, this riptide between them, that has always been there. But the Lena she’s known leaves as quickly as she’d come, like a light gone out, when a voice breaks the moment, coming from somewhere behind them.

“Kara, I know this isn’t technically a date, but could I steal you for a dance?”

It was luck alone that she was facing the other way. Quickly, Kara slides the glasses back onto her face, and turns to find William Dey peeking around the balcony’s glass door. Her heart sinks.

“Date?” says a voice behind her.

Kara turns back quickly, just in time to catch the show of emotions that flutter across the scientist’s expression—surprise, irritation at the interruption. Followed quickly by confusion that sinks, inevitably, into defeat.

Flashing a too-white grin, William steps out onto the balcony, extending a hand toward Lena. “William Dey, Catco Magazine.” As Lena hesitantly shakes his hand, he adds, “Kara’s plus one.”

Pain flashes across Lena’s expression, brief as a lightning strike. It’s only there for the space of a heartbeat, extinguished quickly, but Kara catches it. “Funny,” Lena recovers, eyes shifting to Kara, “I don’t seem to remember even requesting Kara be put on the guest list.”

Panic like scalding water. “It’s not…” Kara stammers, “we’re not—”

The Luthor lifts a hand. Not arrogant, not a dismissal. Something worse—a surrender. “I have investors to speak with,” Lena says. Her eyes dart between William and Kara, drawing conclusions that makes Kara feel like she’s suffocating. “Enjoy your dance, Mr. Dey.” And just like that, she’s gone. Disappears back into the gala with a finality that makes Kara sway just a little bit.

All of it, every step forward, undone in a matter of seconds.

“That was chilly,” William observes, shifting closer to her.

Kara fixes William under a glare that could have withered a thousand suns. Summoning that steel her sister referenced earlier, she smooths her dress, mumbles something about needing to use the bathroom, and darts back into the ballroom. This conversation isn’t over. Not until Lena forces her out of the building. She knows she saw it—Lena had been with her for a moment.

Stepping into the gala, Kara dips and dodges through waitstaff and entrepreneurs. Looking, searching, refusing to give up. But when she finally spots the Luthor, Kara stops short, taking a startled breath.

Lena’s with someone else; someone she’s leading towards the back of the room with her hand on woman’s back. A woman dressed similarly, in all black, but a bit too casually for an event like this. Heading for a far door, Lena’s head is ducked and leaning towards this woman’s, surreptitious, secret. Like they’re deep in discussion about something. Brow furrowing, Kara cuts through a couple more groups of guests, eyes fixed on Lena and this stranger. It isn’t until she dips below a couple of servers, that she’s finally close enough.

Kara’s eyes widen.

That is no investor.

Kara watches, her breath growing shallower with the more she sees, as Lena slips from the ballroom through a side door with none other than Kate Kane.

##

**Luthor—**

“You have to give me the name of your tailor, because this suit…” Kate follows Lena into a back boardroom, closes the door behind her. “Is sexy as fuck.”

“Her name’s Donatella Versace.”

Kate laughs, but when she sees the frank look in Lena’s eyes, her smile dims. “You’re not joking.”

Turning away, Lena starts dialing the code to a safe hidden behind an oil painting. She takes the brief space of quiet to regroup. To breathe. The conversation with Kara had left her rattled. And aching. _Both_ conversations. There had been two. One was spoken. Argued, plead, whispered. The other, unspoken. Conducted in the way their bodies drew closer together despite their wounds, reaching, wanting, starving for contact. It had been in the way Kara had looked at her—like Lena was a home she had once known, one she had crossed an ocean of stars to find, but instead, had returned to it abandoned, the porchlamp cold as ice. And most acutely, it was unspoken in the way Lena had, for a moment, felt that overwhelming pull back to Kara, like the earth drawn to the sun. Overpowering, infinite.

Sighing, Lena shuts her eyes. Just for a beat. Steadies herself. Then, she begins rummaging through the safe’s contents until she produces a small black smartphone.

“Is that the device?” asks Kate when Lena turns to her.

“It’s less device and more program. I tweaked the code you sent me from Lucius Fox’s project archives. Speaking of which,” Lena feels her eyes sharpen on Kate, “that program he wrote was _highly_ illegal.”

“But not so illegal that you won’t use it,” Kate replies coolly.

Lena’s eyes narrow at that subtle accusation. But she lets it slide. “What did Bruce use it for?”

“Don’t you remember? He mobilized it against the Joker. Turned Gotham’s citizens’ phones into sonars to locate him. He only used it once, and Lucius destroyed the hardware.” Kate takes the device when Lena holds it out to her. Turns it over with tattooed fingers. “You ensured that it will only download the guests’ contact lists?” Kate asks, sliding it into her back pocket. “That’s the only data we need, and if we’re going to break privacy laws, I’d rather it be as benign a breach as possible.”

Lena nods. “Just contacts.”

“I have something for you,” Kate remembers. From inside her jacket, she pulls four thin black moleskin journals. She taps the top one. “This was the only one that mentioned Leviathan. The other three contain details about the League of Shadows – Bruce’s memories of his training there, its philosophy, connections to various governments, businesses.”

Placing the journals into the safe, Lena asks over her shoulder, “Bruce trained with the League of Shadows?”

“Bruce trained directly under Ra’s al Ghul.”

A shiver works its way down Lena’s spine as she locks the safe. When she turns, she looks at Kate, having not known just how involved the Waynes had been with the League. Now looking at the youngest family member who’s taken up the Bat symbol, something prickles at the back of Lena’s neck. Was Kate linked to them as well? Somewhat rattled, she asks quietly, “Did… you—?”

“West Point until I got kicked out,” the vigilante replies, tilting her head. “And then various paramilitary mercenary organizations in Myanmar, Pakistan, Somalia, and, briefly, Mali. You seem distressed by this.”

“No, I just didn’t realize.” I faint buzz in her pocket draws her attention. Quickly, she draws out her phone, sees the message notification:

_Where are you? You’re on in five minutes. Remember,_

_you’re the Luthor everyone wants to look at._

A derisive huff pushes past her lips at Lex’s text. “It’s show time,” she tells Kate. “You ready?” When she looks up, she finds the vigilante regarding her with a strange expression. Unexpected worry in her light eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Are you sure this isn’t some elaborate trap that Lex has laid for you?”

“I’ve considered it. I know my brother. When he’s trying to entice me, lead me into something, he’s usually more heavy-handed. This has all the hallmarks of his covert strategy—something he doesn’t want me to know about, at least not yet. Now, let’s go.”

Lena ascends the podium, feeling the gala’s eyes follow her. She taps the microphone as the jazz band quiets.

“Good evening, friends and colleagues,” Lena says warmly. “Mayor Whitman,” she acknowledges, inclining her head. “What a beautiful evening to celebrate all that we have achieved together. My brother and I are honored to host you here tonight to toast your generosity, your ingenuity, which will be felt by many generations to come. Through…”

As she starts speaking platitudes about all the good trust-fund billionaires can do for National City’s lower income neighborhoods, Lena watches at Kate Kane slips through the crowd. Winding like a viper through tall grass. Her progress is methodical, precise, letting the device download contact lists off every smartphone within a ten-foot radius. With every pass, their database grows, the chance that they will pinpoint members of Leviathan that Lena knows, but cannot discern, stand in this very room.

When the ballroom’s elevator dings, Lena’s eyes flash upwards, thinking it odd the hotel security would let someone up without an escort. What comes out of the elevator, though, is something she never expected. It sends terror through her veins like an electric shock.

“Lex Luthor!” a voice calls out thunderously. A single gunshot pierces the air, and the room reels. Gasps and sharp screams through the sound of shattering glass as guests drop their champagne flutes. Before anyone can run, a group of men spill from the elevator, armed with semi-automatics, crow bars, one with a samurai sword.

They flood the room like phantoms, dressed entirely in black, masked, moving like shadows. Shifting nervously like a flock of sheep from wolves, the audience crowds towards the podium, then abruptly splits, making way for a lone figure. He moves through the guests quietly, unmasked, like a cobra finding its way through sand.

“My name is Edward Nygma,” he introduces himself casually. As if he is not carrying a large military-grade shotgun over one shoulder. His voice is soft, serene even, a stark contrast to the violence that waits coiled at his mercy. “No sudden moves,” he tells the petrified guests softly, “and no one will get hurt. I must say, Mr. Luthor, that I’m a little off-put that I was not deemed integral enough to merit an invitation to this little gala you’ve thrown for my colleagues. So, I decided to make an appearance anyway.”

Calmly, he ascends the podium, inclines his head towards Lena. “I am so sorry to interrupt, beautiful, but I have quick announcement to make.” And in one swift movement, he seizes Lena, wrapping one arm around her torso, the other, her throat. He’s strong, too strong to fight, and Lena feels him move her quickly off the podium and into the center of the room. 

“What’s your name?” he asks her. He has a rich accent, lilting on his vowels. North African, Lena guesses distantly, trying to remember details for the police report that would inevitably come. Egyptian, maybe. “Your _name_.”

The proximity makes her skin crawl. “Lena Luthor,” she hisses.

“Miss _Luthor._ What extraordinary luck. I must tell you, this suit isn’t doing you justice.” His breath grows hot in her ear as he turns his face into her neck, sending a disgusted shiver over her skin. “I bet you’re devastating in a black dress. Men would go to war, level countries, for you in a black dress.”

“Get your hands off me,” she seethes. It comes out strong despite how her hands shake.

“Not until you locate your brother for me. You see, I have a message for him, quite short. Can you please point him out to me?”

She tries to keep calm. Tries to keep her breathing even, tries not to absorb the looks of horror on her guests’ faces as this intruder orbits the room with her. Instinct makes her eyes dart, searching, scanning the crowd for her face. Blue eyes that will make her strong. Surely, she hadn’t left. Surely, Lena’s words hadn’t sent her retreating.

“I won’t ask you again, Miss Luthor.” She feels his grip tighten on her throat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Kate shove her way to the crowd’s edge, her eyes wide, darkening with purpose. Lena shakes her head subtly, telling her no. She can’t expose herself. Lena feels herself begin to shake. She keeps searching, searching, for the one person that will always come for her, the one person who will never give up. She searches for Kara. Hand shaking, Lena finally points at her brother, standing anonymously beside a pair of board members and the mayor of National City.

“Ah, Lex Luthor, there you are. What a dazzling evening you have conjured here in National City. I do apologize for this interruption, although I must tell you, it is quite cowardly for you to simply stand there like a frightened lamb as I threaten your sister this way.”

“Who are you?” Lex growls, indignant at being called a coward.

“It doesn’t matter who we are. What matters is our message.” Over Lena’s shoulder, Nygma hisses, “You’re coming too close.”

“Is that some kind of riddle I’m meant to solve?” her brother scoffs, taking a step toward them.

“It shouldn’t be a very difficult one for a man of your intellect.”

Lex’s lip curls. “I won’t be intimidated by some grandstanding thugs. Who sent you?”

“I know you’re sniffing around,” Nygma says quietly, ignoring the bait. “You’re leaving fingerprints everywhere. Clumsy. I was sent here to tell you to desist. If you do not stop, there will be consequences, for you and your beautiful sister here.” He looks at Lena again, his dark eyes hungry. “I’ll start with her.”

It happens too fast to really see. In a flash, one of the masked men goes from pointing a gun at a government official to smashing through a tower of champagne glasses fifty feet away. Another disappears and then reappears atop one of the sculptures, knocked out. A flash of red and blue across Lena’s field of vision, and two more intruders are sent tumbling over a table of caviar and oysters. It isn’t until the last three are hung by their suit collars from a chandelier that Lena’s brain catches up with what she’s seeing.

_Supergirl._

Relief like warm rain. Like air after being held under. Kara lands with a powerful crack about twenty feet in front of her, blue eyes like currents of electricity. Furious, vengeful. In the chaos, Nygma whips a knife out of his suit jacket and brings it to Lena’s throat. The blade hovers just beyond her chin, glinting in the soft light, a threat. He holds her close to his chest now, breathing in her ear. When the superhero’s eyes meet Lena’s, there’s a moment, quick as matchlight, where a torrent of emotions flows. Desperation, fear, longing, and perhaps most searing of all, regret. Swallowing, Lena’s eyes don’t leave Kara’s.

“It’s over,” Kara tells Mr. Nygma in a growl.

The man snarls back, “It’s just begun.”

“Let her go.”

“How about you break Lex Luthor’s legs, and I’ll think about it?”

Lena watches Kara’s jaw clench so hard it looks like it may break. “You’re in no position to negotiate with me.”

Mr. Nygma tightens his grip on Lena, making her gasp. “Aren’t I?”

“I’m warning you: I won’t tell you again. _Let—her—go._ ”

“I guess I’ll have to deliver my message to his sister, then,” and Nygma presses the knife’s edge into Lena’s throat. Jolting in his arms, Lena breathes in sharply at the pain. A single tear of blood snakes down her neck. Red, and glutinous.

##

**Zor-El—**

It’s the sight of Lena’s blood that does it. Something deep in Kara’s chest cracks, like the breaking apart of bedrock. Fury like the earth’s molten core, heaving, roiling, pushing against the confines of her bones. Panic vibrates there too, radiating outward. It calls the fire, draws heat inward, rushing into her skull, terrible and searing, and then blasts from her eyes. She hits her mark with lethal precision, right into Nygma’s right shoulder, just poking out behind Lena. The strike sends him leaping back with a strangled cry. Released, Lena stumbles forward, brings a trembling hand to her neck.

Nygma’s not ready for what comes next. Gripping his shoulder in pain, he doesn’t even have time to look up before Kara barrels into him from the air. Impact like a meteor plummeting into the earth. A hurricane of rage, torment, despair, all of it together in how hard she hits him. They shatter through the hotel’s far window and into empty space above Olympic Boulevard. Behind her, she hears people screaming. Vaguely, someone shouts her name.

They shoot straight into the air. In seconds, they’re above the skyline, and still Kara does not stop. She grips him by the back of his collar, dragging him into the cold vault of the night sky. Rain soaks her hair, runs down her face, her neck, her fingertips as she rockets upwards. The clouds break, and she pushes higher, _higher,_ fury unlike she’s ever felt drives her up. Eyes still glowing with heat vision, Kara hears the man she drags upward scream in terror. The sound only exhilarates the vengeance scorching in her blood.

Just as she starts to feel the rainwater on her skin beginning to freeze, she slows, twists midair, and then dives. Down, down towards the sea. Gravity helps her accelerate, and right when she reaches the speed and force she knows will break his neck, she pulls up. Edward Nygma roars with vertigo, and just as Kara feels him start to heave, she stops completely.

They hover almost a mile above the cold Pacific. The ocean’s hide shifts below them, indistinct, without feature or measure between the rumbling thunderheads.

Teeth grinding, Kara lifts Nygma so he’s eye level. She can still feel the glow of the heat vision, pulsing like embers in her eyes when she growls, “If you _ever_ threaten Lena Luthor again, I will rip you apart.”

To her surprise, Nygma starts laughing. “My, my,” he gasps, almost hysterical with terror, “a Super in love with a Luthor! How exquisitely Shakespearean. How doomed. But I know your kind,” he practically spits, dark eyes like the howling void. Ruthless, strangely vacant. “Kryptonians don’t kill. They don’t have the _spine_. If any Luthor gets in my way again, I’ll threaten whomever I please, _however_ I please,” he taunts, making Kara snarl. “And she did look so delicious…”

Kara brings him closer. In a voice like granite, she says, “You’ve made a grave error, Mr. Nygma _._ You’ve confused me with Superman _._ You like riddles? I’ve got one for you. _What goes up, must come down; I am the force that will make you drown._ What am I?”

They speak the answer together: “ _Gravity._ ”

Her meaning takes a second to register, but Kara sees it happen. Nygma’s eyes go wide, his smile faltering. And just when Kara knows he’s realized what she’s about to do, she extends him out farther, holding him by the neck with a single hand.

And then she drops him.

The empty atmosphere swallows up his howl.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Kara inhales a deep breath.

Four.

Finally, at five seconds, she dives. Catches him about a hundred feet above the waves. Gripping him under the arms, she feels her jaw tighten with scorn as she realizes he’s passed out. Glancing down, she veers into National City’s harbor, sweeping just above the ocean’s surface.

Still coming in and out of consciousness, she sets Edward Nygma on one of the harbor’s bell buoys. Grabbing a fistful of hair, she yanks his head backward so she can get a good look at him. He’s pale as death.

“Next time,” she hisses, watching his eyes roll, “I won’t catch you.”

And then she leaves him there, the buoy bell dinging in the gloom, keeping perfect time with the forlorn beat of Kara’s heart.

###


	3. Amman

**Amman**

**Luthor—**

Sunlight beams in from the passenger-side window, warming Lena’s shoulder as the car makes its way through the jostling streets Amman. It’s a city the color of sandstone, limestone, weathered rock that has endured relentless sun and heat for thousands of years. A collision of the old and the new. Square buildings atop square buildings peppered with ruins and modern skyscrapers. All beneath a searing sun that burns like a white-hot coin in the cloudless afternoon. Though Lena had always preferred colder climates, she can see the beauty of this place—tucked away in the cracks and corridors of this secret city. It hovers in the outdoor cafes where Jordanians sit sipping espresso in white and tan linens. It’s in how ancient this city feels, a shelterer of human beings before civilization. Before language.

Her car slips through traffic with surprising agility, dodging yellow taxis, four-wheel drive SUVs, flashy Mercedes Benzs, and brave jay-walkers. Palm trees line the center divider in the middle of the broad street until they merge onto a large highway, heading for the desert outskirts of Amman.

The meeting was to take place in a luxurious, exclusive hotel. Small, hidden away in the surrounding foothills, sixty miles from the Dead Sea. The location screamed obscurity. Secrecy. But the meeting was not hers to attend.

The warning had come from Brainy. A surprise visit to Lena’s office late one night. Lex was going to Jordan to conduct a meeting he had told no one about, apart from Brainy. Though he did not know the reasons why, Brainy suspected the meeting would give them a lead on Leviathan. He had only given Lena a name—Meredith Tate. It had been Lucas Fox, through some kind of hacking wizardry that even Lena wouldn’t be able to understand without several hours of study, who’d discovered the time and location.

Strangely, Lena had never heard the name Miranda Tate. Even stranger, a quick Google search had returned next to nothing. But if Lex was making the effort to fly halfway around the world to meet with her at some obscure boutique hotel in the drylands of Amman, then she had to be _someone_. And although Lena was not a betting woman, she would be willing to wager that this Meredith Tate had some kind of connection with Leviathan. A suspicion Brainy also shared. And so she had decided to make a surprise appearance.

Turning to her phone, Lena scrolls through the headlines until one makes her pause, brow furrowing.

_Supergirl Under Scrutiny -- Gotham Thug Found Dehydrated and Stranded on Harbor Buoy_

Lena doesn’t bother to read beyond the byline. She had heard about the drop. A body plummeting towards the dark ocean, only to be caught in the final seconds before certain death. The next morning, Edward Nygma had been found bobbing on a bell buoy halfway out of National City’s harbor, crusted in salt and stinking of brine.

She had wanted to go to Kara that morning. Had seen the terror reflect in Kara’s eyes the moment Nygma brought the knife to her throat. She was the source of the Super’s fear—she knew it to her bones. It made her feel responsible in some way. But to get to Lex’s meeting in time, she was forced to leave early that morning for Amman. Speaking with Kara would have to wait.

Turning to watch the city flicker by, Lena runs a hand over her mouth. Anxious, restless. She keeps going over it in her mind—her conversation with Kara on the hotel patio. There were so many things that still needed to be said. Lena brings a hand to her forehead, massages there. She isn’t ready to have the conversation with Kara. Not yet. Not until she proves it—that not every heart beating behind a Luthor’s chest is corrupt. There are some that are good. There are some that only strive to do good, strive to love.

Taking a breath, Lena folds her hands in her lap and tries to banish the Super from her mind, for now. She needs to concentrate. Formulate some kind of strategy for barging in on her brother’s meeting with Ms. Tate. She spends the rest of the car ride perusing the Tate Foundation’s website, glancing through the philanthropic work they’ve conducted in the region.

When the car finally stops, Lena unbuckles her seatbelt and without waiting for the driver, steps outside. Her eyes lift to the hotel, the only building on this narrow road. It's a small building, only three floors high, its beauty held in its modesty. There is nothing imposing about it. Nothing intimidating, its elegance subtle. Bougainvillea wreaths the entryway, a riot of white and purple flowers. They cascade over balconies and breezeways, stark against the sandstone-colored walls of the hotel. Its architecture is distinctly middle eastern—Arabian-style windows adorned with intricate latticework stained a brilliant sky blue. On the ground floor is a small café, occupied by patrons dressed in linens and wide-brimmed hats. Understated luxury.

A hotel staffer hurries towards her, offers to take her small bag. Lena just smiles and tells him, “I’m looking for Miranda Tate. She’s a guest. We have a meeting at 2:30, but I’m a bit early.”

“Ah yes,” he says, beckoning her inside. “Ms. Tate is just taking her coffee on one of our private patios. I can show you to her.”

They pass through the hotel lobby and up a flight of stairs inlaid with mosaics, then out onto a spacious verandah. It’s partly shaded by potted palm trees and colorful awnings. As Lena follows the staffer around a corner, she can’t help but breathe in the air, the smell of citrus, and warm sand.

A smaller patio opens up before them, where a woman sits at a small, secluded table, bathed in sunlight filtered from a bougainvillea tree. Dressed in a plain linen suit, she sits reading a newspaper written in Farsi. Even from a distance, Lena can see this woman is beautiful. Large, expressive eyes above full lips. She is a woman of this region. If Lena had to venture a guess, perhaps Iranian. Although as she draws closer and the woman looks up expectantly, light hazel eyes suggest she might be Syrian. Or even Afghan.

“Now this is a surprise,” the woman says. A lilting accent over a soft, velvet voice, only a notch above a murmur. “I was expecting the other Luthor sibling.”

“He’s on his way, Ms. Tate. I’m Lena,” and she reaches out a hand.

“I know who you are.”

Rising, Miranda Tate takes Lena’s hand, grips it gently in hello. Tilting her head, Lena offers space for Miranda to tell her how she knows her name, but the woman only gives her a soft smile. Says nothing more. Despite her silence, Miranda seems completely unbothered by this surprise visit. The steadiness earns a tick of Lena’s respect. She knows Fortune 500 CEOs that are sent into tailspins over lesser things than an unexpected guest.

“You know I’m meeting your brother in ten minutes?” Miranda finally asks, resuming her seat.

“I do.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“He’ll undoubtedly know in ten minutes.”

A smile quirks on Miranda’s lips at Lena’s indifference to spoiling her brother’s meeting. “You’ll be joining us, then?” Without waiting for a response, Miranda signals with a slight nod to a hovering server, indicating he bring another chair.

Lena nods. “I should warn you: if he’s surprised to see me, he may be quite disgruntled.”

Miranda glances out over the balcony for a beat, then returns to Lena wearing a shrewd expression. “Why do I have the feeling I am simply the chess board upon which you two are playing?”

“I think your role is a bit more substantive than that, Ms. Tate.”

“Mm.” A faint hint of intuition in Miranda’s eyes. Quickly snuffed out. “Please, sit. Do you take coffee, Miss Luthor?”

“Call me Lena, please.” Sliding into the seat opposite Miranda, Lena says, “And I’ll have tea, if it’s available.”

Miranda’s head tilts in a question. “Jordan is a coffee country.”

Lena smiles, excuses, “Irish habits.”

Miranda seems warmed by this fact. “Are you Irish?”

A breeze tugs at the sleeves of Lena’s silk shirt. Brings the smell of desert heat. “In my deep past.”

Miranda sits back in her chair, eyes veiled. “Ah. It haunts us all, doesn’t it?”

There’s something deep that glimmers there in Miranda Tate’s stare. Her smile falls, just slightly, expression darkening. It summons something in Lena, a chill. She knows that haunt this woman references. A strange bond. Though they’ve never met, Lena is struck by the unexpected feeling that she shares something with this woman. Painful memory. Struggle.

The moment is broken when a server approaches, bearing a platter of dates and figs, laid on a bed of flatbread and hummus. He slides it onto the table, smiling at Miranda like he’s known her many years.

“Ah,” Miranda says, brightening. Places a willowy hand on the waiter’s arm. “ _Kheily mamnoon, Hashem._ ”

He murmurs something back to her, then disappears down the breezeway. Intrigued by the warmth of this exchange, Lena looks down at the platter. She hadn’t expected Miranda Tate to be so… simple. So informal. There is nothing pretentious about this spread, nothing like what she had anticipated from a woman Lex was flying half-way around the world to visit for an afternoon.

“I have known hunger,” Miranda says, as if following closely Lena’s observations. “As a child, my body grew accustomed to malnourishment. Plain foods, simple foods, are all I can bear to eat now, as a woman.”

“I’m grateful to share it with you,” says Lena.

“So why are you here, Lena? I assume it wasn’t simply to meet my acquaintance.”

Lena pauses, working out the best strategic answer to this. Decides to cut as close to the truth as possible. “My brother and I don’t always see eye to eye. I want to ensure that the humanitarian work he plans to conduct out here with you is genuine.”

Miranda selects a date from the platter. Chews slowly, thinking, then she swallows and tells Lena, “He says he wants to help me eradicate cholera in the slums of Gaza.”

“What my brother says and what my brother does are often two very different things.”

“What a burden you bear,” she laments softly, “unable to trust your own brother. I know that weight. Grief born from family bloodbaths. I am sorry to hear it is also heavy for you to carry.”

An unexpected sincerity reflects in Miranda’s eyes. It disarms Lena, leaving her feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable. Shifting in her seat, Lena asks, trying to divert the focus off the Luthors, “Do the Tates have a tradition of mistrust as well?”

Miranda looks thoughtful, eyes shifting over the balcony again. Rise to the east. “There is a pit,” she begins, voice hushed, “hidden in the vast expanse of the Syrian desert. It is a prison. Made to keep those who are destined to be forgotten. The only way to escape comes at great risk. You must climb, fight your way up a wall of crumbling sandstone, nearly five hundred meters high. To fall, is to die. Or at the very least, such a fall would break your body. Your spirit. I imagine one such as yourself knows the kind of resolve it takes to claw so hard for sunlight, for freedom, _escape_.”

Lena sits stiff as stone. It isn’t until another breath of the breeze whispers over her skin that she stirs, asks quietly, “Why do you assume I need escape?”

Miranda looks at her. “You were born a Luthor. Surely the name is its own kind of Pit?”

It almost snatches her breath away, how shrewdly this woman has read her. As if every memory, every crack in Lena’s armor, has been laid bare for Miranda Tate to see. She loathes the feeling.

“Lena?”

Startled, Lena glances backward to see Lex Luthor step onto the verandah wearing a surprised expression, and, to a practiced eye, a flash of indignance. He’s dressed for this weather—a light linen suit, no tie.

“Ah,” Miranda greets, eyeing Lena, “he didn’t know. We should have taken wagers,” she tells her, giving her a crafty look.

“Lex,” Lena greets, unable to help the slightly smug expression on her face, “you’re late.”

Lex’s grey eyes shift from Lena to Miranda, and back again, still trying to work it out. “I don’t seem to recall inviting you to this private meeting.”

“I find it strange you didn’t think to invite me,” Lena replies, “considering I am the President of the Luthor Foundation, and we are always looking to collaborate with local philanthropic partners like Miranda Tate,” and she nods towards the woman, who sits silently, watching this exchange behind an inscrutable expression.

“Well, Ms. Tate here has a bit of a reputation for being quite difficult to find, and somewhat skittish at meeting with new partners,” Lex says, now looking at Miranda somewhat accusingly. “I didn’t want to scare her off.”

“I wasn’t really on the market for new partners,” Miranda says, lifting her coffee to her lips. “As you said, you found _me._ ”

It’s the way she said it that makes Lena’s intuition flare, like an ember fanned into flame. It is said with hostility. Resentment. A strange reaction for a proclaimed humanitarian. It occurs to her that there is now a conversation happening beneath the one they’re speaking. A deep, powerful current beneath the waters they tread on the surface.

“Good thing I did, too. Wouldn’t want you to drill those water wells too deep without me.” Lex puts his hands in his pants pockets, trying to appear casual. A practiced ease, one that Lena knows means he’s deeply uncomfortable. Off-balance. “I have some technology,” he tells Miranda, “that I think could help you out considerably in such hostile conditions. But you,” he turns his attention back to Lena, “you don’t need to be here while we talk tech. I can handle this.”

“I know considerably more about the tech landscape than you do, Lex.”

“Are you familiar with water drilling and purification infrastructure?” he challenges.

“Are _you_?”

Sighing, Lex finally sits. Sips his water. “You know,” he warns, popping a fig into his mouth, “meddling in my affairs without caution may produce similar effects to those experienced by Icarus when he flew too close to the sun, dear sister.” His eyes don’t leave Lena’s as that threat settles. Poisonous, prophetic.

“An allegorical misfire, Lex,” Lena replies coolly. “I would argue that _you’re_ Icarus. And the sun?” Lena’s eyes shift to Miranda Tate. She lets the implication hover, like a blade ready to drop.

Miranda just smiles, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. A sudden buzzing against the table distracts them all, and their attention drops to Miranda’s ringing phone. Before she can silence it, Lena catches the name _Ahmad Nazir_ flash on the screen. It goes black as Miranda declines the call. “As much as I enjoy watching you two make war over our coffee,” she says, “I do have a schedule to keep to…”

Lex pours himself a small coffee from the steaming pot on the table. As he’s reaching for the cream, he remarks, “You know, your name and your accent are quite… incongruous, Ms. Tate.”

“Your point?” Miranda smiles, glancing at Lena.

“No point, just an observation.” Lex stirs his coffee, surveying the two women beneath the awning of flowers. After a long pause, he finally relents, “Well, since my sister insists on sitting here listening to us discuss water infrastructure, so be it. My proposal is simple: a fifty/fifty philanthropic joint venture, Ms. Tate. I can provide raw materials and import on-the-ground expertise…”

The rest of the conversation proceeds like a textbook business negotiation. And yet, for some reason, Lena has the prickling feeling that, despite the water terminology, Miranda Tate and her brother are not talking about drilling for water. It’s something else. They’re _looking_ for something else, Lena would bet her life on it. But she gathers nothing more from the following conversation. Nothing about Miranda Tate, her origins, her wealth, her trade, whatever lies concealed beneath her veneer of humanitarianism. Nothing about Leviathan, though she can feel its presence everywhere in that discussion, hidden deep, like a shadow moving in the dark. Untraceable, indistinguishable, but there.

Waiting.

##

**Zor-El—**

It’s a cold morning. The kind that can be felt through blankets before getting out of bed. When a knock comes at her door, Kara burrows further into her comforter, groaning. She knows who it is.

“I’m still sleeping!” she hollers.

"It’s ten in the morning,” calls her sister’s muffled voice through the door. “I have coffee. I’m coming in.”

When she hears her apartment door open, Kara grumbles and sits up in bed. Watches as her sister sets a bag of bagels on the coffee table and makes her way over to Kara. Alex doesn’t say a word as she approaches the bed. Moving to set the coffee down on Kara’s nightstand, Alex thrusts a folded newspaper into her hands, then sits down. Nervous, Kara glances down at the newspaper, and immediately she sees what’s put Alex in such a mood. In bold type, splashed across the front page, is the headline—

_What was she thinking_?

A picture of Edward Nygma, sprawled on the bell buoy, unconscious, sits below the byline. Blinking several times, Kara takes a deep breath, and sets the paper down. Looks up at Alex, face blank.

“So I let him spend the night in the harbor, what’s the big deal?”

“He could have died out there, Kara.”

Rolling her eyes, Kara grabs the coffee off her nightstand and takes a sip. “That’s a bit dramatic.”

“He was unconscious. He could have slipped off that buoy and drowned.” There’s a pause, swollen with everything Alex isn’t saying, all the anger that Kara can now see frothing in her sister’s eyes. The fear. “Why was he unconscious, Kara? Don’t bother lying. The coast guard saw what you did.”

“If you already know, why are you asking me?”

“Because I want to hear you _say it_.”

Swallowing, Kara sets her coffee down. Then lies, “I lost my grip.”

Alex’s eyes widen, lips pursing. “On reality, maybe.”

Kara snorts at the jibe, shoots Alex a dark look.

“I’ve seen you hold up a building,” her sister accuses. “You don’t lose your grip. You dropped him. You flew him a mile above the ocean, and then you dropped him.”

Kara’s jaw twitches. “And then I caught him,” she adds.

“We—do not— _torture—_ people.”

“Torture,” Kara exclaims. Unable to take this lecture sitting down any more, she launches from her bed. Starts pacing. “Come on Alex, I just wanted to scare him a little bit. But to accuse me of torture?”

“You let him fall almost three thousand feet!” Alex stomps after her into the living area, brown eyes wide, as if she isn’t quite sure who she’s looking at. “You let him think he was going to die, and then saved him at the last second. That’s torture!”

“I won’t apologize. Not for this.” Kara straightens, shame making her indignant. “Not for showing this violent, slimy swine,” she practically spits, gesturing towards Edward Nygma’s picture, “what happens when you storm into a peaceful crowd and make threats, draw blood, just to send a message.” She crosses her arms, a dare in her blue eyes. “I’m not sorry.”

“You will be,” Alex says very quietly. “When they come for you accusing you of abusing your power, and then use it as an excuse to take you away…” A shine glitters in Alex’s eyes at this, her voice weakening. It makes Kara falter slightly, knowing that ancient fear that has always sat in Alex’s heart. That Kara would be taken away. “When you start doing this to people—”

“ _People_?” Kara cries, any sympathy extinguished. “Let’s not forget who we’re talking about, Alex. Do you know what Nygma has done in Gotham?”

“I don’t care what he’s done!” Alex finally shouts. “I don’t care what any of them have done! I care about what _you’re_ doing. I care about the line that separates you from them, and the fact that recently, it has gotten very blurry.” Her chest heaves, shows Kara just how on edge Alex is, how deeply her anger and fear run. It makes Kara’s eyes fall to the floor. “You have to hold yourself to a higher standard. It’s the only way we can justify what you do!”

They stand apart, suspended, glaring at one another. Alex takes a step forward, points an angry finger at the ground. “I know exactly what’s going on with you. You’ve changed. I can pinpoint it to the day.” She nods, and Kara can see she’s drawing herself up, gathering courage. “It was the day you went to the Fortress with Lena.”

Kara freezes. Swallows thickly, fighting the way the name alone makes her heart beat heavier.

“You walked in together,” Alex says, “and came out torn apart. Since then, you’re almost unrecognizable.” A heavy pause as Alex lets that sit, heavy and suffocating, in the room with them. “You’re angry. Bitter. Unpredictable. You’re like dry kindling in a lightning storm, the slightest spark sets you off. You should have seen the terrified looks on people’s face after you smashed through that window with Nygma, Kara. The look on _Lena’s_ face—”

“I wasn’t!” Kara cries. It was hearing the name again that finally made her break. She gestures wildly at the newspaper. “I wasn’t thinking!”

Alex clamps her mouth shut, almost relieved that she’s finally broken through. Stands waiting as Kara sucks in a ragged breath, practically vibrating with everything she’s holding in.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she whispers. “I was… reacting. I was scared. When he brought out that knife—” Kara’s breath catches, eyes starting to burn. “I _am_ scared, Alex. Whatever she’s doing with Kate, she’s making herself a target. And she’s keeping me…” She reaches out with a hand, as if to indicate all the space, “so far _out_. It was luck alone that I was there to stop him. And if I hadn’t…” Her voice drops to a whisper, “Just the thought of…” The words stick in her throat, nightmares before her eyes. She can’t finish the sentence. Instead her head drops, eyes closing.

Alex has gone very still. Like she’s standing on the edge of something. Kara watches her debate, chew on the inside of her cheek, and then take a deep breath. “I have to ask you something,” she murmurs. “It might be painful. But at this point, people’s lives might be endangered. I need to ask it, so I can understand.”

Straightening, Kara lifts her chin and nods, bracing herself.

“Are you in love with Lena?”

A question to knock the wind out of her. A question she never expected. A question to which she knows the answer, has _known_ the answer, from the moment she caught a pair of green eyes in a top-floor corner office.

“Of—course, I love Lena. She’s my… my best friend—”

“No, Kara.” Alex closes her eyes, jaw clenching. When she reopens her eyes, there’s only empathy there. Deep and knowing. “Are you _in_ love with Lena?” A heavy, suspended silence. Until her sister takes a step towards her, eyes searching Kara’s. Standing stock still, Kara feels every nerve, every memory, every hope, draw up from her chest, coil in her throat, and flood over her eyes, when Alex murmurs, “Does she feel like home?”

It’s like she can’t breathe. It’s like she’s been backed into a corner. But at the same time, it feels as though, for the first time in years, she’s been released. Felt sunlight on her face. Air in her lungs.

“Yes,” she whispers. So quiet, so raw. “Yes.”

Alex nods, and Kara knows that this, _this_ , is one true, honest thing that Alex understands in its entirety. “It snuck up on me,” she tells her sister, “I didn’t know—I didn’t realize until—” Her throat closes off, and Kara places a hand over her face. “What am I—going to do?” she whimpers.

She feels a familiar pair of hands grasp her shoulders. Run up and down her arms, trying to comfort. “You’re going to take a deep breath,” Alex soothes, and Kara sucks in a rattling breath. “And let it out. It’s going to be okay.”

They sink onto the couch together. Silence envelops them. Kara lets her sister hold her, repeat promises that she’ll be okay, that everything’s all right.

A long time passes.

When she is finally able to catch her breath, Kara pulls away, and asks, “How long have you known?”

Drawing away slightly, Alex is careful with her answer. “I think I’ve suspected for a while. But it didn’t seem right… to push.” She pauses, then, in a lighter tone, adds, “Not until you started threatening… _bad_ men, but men, people, by holding them a mile above the ocean and then letting them drop three thousand feet to scare the living shit out of them.”

At this, Kara lets out a half-laugh, half-sob.

“You can’t do that,” Alex says firmly, though there’s laughter in her eyes. “Even when you love someone, you can’t do that. That’s very bad, Kara.”

“I know, I know. Really. I swear to Rao. I won’t do it again.” A short beat, then she adds in a rush, “I might do it to Lex. But, generally speaking, I won’t.”

There’s another space of silence, until Alex looks over at her again. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah… I’ve been wrestling with it, I think, for a while. Without really knowing. But it’s been making me…” Kara’s eyes lift, somewhat guiltily, to her sister’s.

“Heartsick, and… vengeful?”

Kara lets out a soft, sad laugh. “That about sums it up.” Her eyes lift to Alex’s, and the tenderness there makes her chest tighten. “What if I never get to tell her?” she murmurs. “What if I ruined it beyond repair?”

Alex tightens the arm she still has draped over her shoulders. “It’s not hopeless, Kara. It’s not ruined beyond repair. Lena… she needs to lick her wounds. And you have to give her time to do that. But she’s one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met. And the most compassionate. She’ll find her way back. I know she will.” Nodding, Kara allows herself to sink into her sister’s words. “And the gala?” Alex adds, smiling slightly. “Look, it could have been worse. She could have yelled. She could have thrown you out.” She bends so she can catch Kara’s eye, then says frankly, “She could have thrown champagne in your face.” Leaning forward, Alex grabs a paper bag off the coffee table. “I brought you comfort bagels. And enough cream cheese to fill a small pond.”

“Thank god,” Kara groans, reaching into the bag and plucking out a cinnamon raisin bagel and a generous handful of cream cheeses. Slathering on a thick layer, Kara takes a generous bite. “Maybe I’ll just eat my feelings today.”

Alex smiles gently. “Sometimes that’s all we can do.”

Through a mouthful of bagel, Kara garbles, “She can’t hate me forever.”

“Impossible.”

“She might even love me, too, you know? How could she not. I mean, look at me.” She shrugs towards herself with a bagel in each hand.

“You are the picture of grace and beauty.”

Alex’s tone makes Kara pause her chewing. Mouth stuffed, she catches the look in her eye. Then, for the first time in longer than she can remember, Kara laughs, full and unrestrained with her sister. And for just a moment, sitting there eating bagels on a Sunday morning, mouth and chin smeared in cream cheese, the familiar lightness to her spirit returns. Brief, fleeting, but it’s there—a space of sunlight.

##

  
**Luthor—**

It’s dusk when Lena pulls up to Amman’s international airport. Sunset lays heavy over Amman, thick and palpable, as if the air has been filtered with rust. When the car stops outside the building for private jets, Lena grabs her bag and whisks through the security line, then customs and border control. A small van waits for her outside customs. Ducking inside, Lena nods to the driver, filtering through three dozen emails she’s received in the last hour.

The hangar she’s taken to is small, different to the one in which she arrived. But it isn’t until she gets out of the van and looks up from her phone that Lena notices she isn’t standing in a hangar with her familiar plane. The one sitting there is smaller, sleeker, and definitely not hers. Stopping dead, she glances over at an attendant. Gestures towards the waiting jet.

“This isn’t my plane,” she tells him.

The man nods, looks uneasy. “Mr. Luthor took the bigger jet, ma’am, and left you his.”

Lena blinks. “He took the bigger jet.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“ _My_ jet,” Lena corrects. “He took my jet.”

“My sincerest apologies, Miss Luthor, I tried to negotiate with him, but he insisted. He said something about needing the autopilot technology for an investors meeting in Algiers—”

Lena lifts a hand, shaking her head. Gives him an irritated, but resigned nod. “It’s not your fault. I’ll make do.” Her teeth clench, knowing Lex took the plane just to piss her off, retribution for showing up uninvited to his private meeting. “My brother’s a petty man, isn’t he?” she bites.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Climbing into Lex’s plane, Lena nods at the pilot in the cockpit and scrolls through her contact list. Lands on Kate Kane’s number and taps it.

“Hey,” comes Kate’s voice on the other line a few seconds later. “The system is telling me you’re already in the air.”

“That’s Lex,” Lena tells her, taking a seat in a leather armchair. “He took my jet. Can you track this flight instead?” She gives Kate the flight number and serial number for the GPS system in Lex’s plane. “Can’t be too careful.”

“Miss Luthor, we’re ready for takeoff,” the pilot announces, glancing back at her.

“Great,” Lena calls, motions for him to go ahead.

“So,” Kate starts on the line, “Miranda Tate?”

Lena pauses, thinking back on her conversation with the enigmatic woman she’d met. “She was young,” she says, thinking aloud, “maybe only a few years older than me, which was surprising. And she was, simultaneously, one of the warmest and eeriest people I’ve ever met.”

“Any hints of Leviathan?”

“I have some suspicions, but nothing overt that I could pick up on. But she and Lex both have an interest in digging something up in Gaza.” Lena feels the plane shift left, turning onto one of the runways. “We’re taking off,” she says, pulling her bag into her lap. Begins rummaging for her tablet. “I’m going to jot down some notes on the flight and I’ll send them to you. We can go over them together when I get to Gotham.”

“Sounds good. See you soon.”

Lena drops her phone into her bag and buckles her seatbelt. The sound of accelerating engines whines through the plane and she takes a breath, feeling the increase of speed as they flash down the runway. Then, the slight vertigo as they rise into the air. Out her window, she watches the city the color of sand and cream shrink away. A few moments later and they’re over Israel, and then the glowing expanse of the Mediterranean, glowing copper in the dying sunlight. Settling back into her seat, Lena opens a document on her tablet and begins typing.

Forty-five minutes melts away as she recounts every detail of her conversation with Miranda, and then with Miranda _and_ Lex. She feels herself sink into the problem, trying to draw connections, overlaps, signposts. She notes even the pauses, the moments where Miranda and Lex had seemed to be communicating something only in glances, clenched jaws, tapping fingers. The puzzle is like a salve. A moment of pure concentration. But as her typing begins to slow and her notes grow progressively more disjointed, she begins to feel that familiar tug in the back of her mind. Memories that nag, itch, break her concentration. Pull her eyes up and out the window, where the last splashes of the sun bleed out over the darkening Mediterranean Sea.

Finally, she gives in, and lets herself be swallowed whole by her memories of Kara. The gala comes flooding back. Champagne, and glittering lights. The muscles of Kara’s back as she turned to face her. A flash of a knife. Bodies crashing through glass. Blue eyes growing almost white with heat, and furious despair. Lena knows that despair well. Had known it from the moment Lex told her Kara was Supergirl.

_I decided it was better to have your hatred, then to not have you at all._

Her eyes close at the sting of that memory. Lips twisting with hurt. She should have said something. She should have told her what she’s been aching to tell her for over a year now.

A grinding rumble suddenly shudders through the plane, and Lena’s eyes flutter open. It’s loud, and deep, vibrating so heavily that she can feel it in her teeth. Lena grips the arms of her chair, knuckles whitening. Instinct makes her eyes flash towards her window, but she can’t see anything but the darkness outside and the intermittent flash of the lights on the plane wing.

“What the hell…?” Lena’s eyes dart towards the cockpit. “What was that?” she calls to the pilot.

For a beat, there’s no answer. But then—

“Miss Luthor,” the pilot shouts back, and Lena doesn’t miss how stricken his voice sounds, “fasten your—!”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish. A bullet breaks through the front windshield, and he falls face-down on the switchboard. Dead.

Lena launches from her seat, gasping. Wind rips through the hole in the windshield, and the jet’s emergency arm starts blaring. Dashing to the cockpit, Lena bends over the pilot, sees the blood on the dash, the grotesque wound in his skull, and knows there’s nothing she can do. Gaze flashing out the windshield, Lena feels her eyes widen at what she sees.

A huge military-grade cargo plane hovers just ahead of her jet, only a few hundred yards higher. The back hatch is open, and even from this distance, Lena can see the silhouettes of masked figures standing braced in the open loading deck.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. Her hands start to shake, mouth opening in shock. Dread shoots through her, paralyzing her where she stands.

One of the masked figures lowers what looks to be an enormous crossbow down at her jet’s nose, and she ducks down beneath the dash. Flipping a switch to turn on the jet’s autopilot, Lena grits her teeth and starts forward. She crawls on her hands and knees out of the cockpit. Scrambles into the fuselage and grabs an emergency phone off one of the paneled walls. A loud bang cracks somewhere overhead and a high-pitched whistle screams through the plane, the sound of escaping oxygen. Heart slamming against her ribs, Lena looks upwards, sees something that looks like a giant hook cleaved through the roof of the plane. For a moment she just stares at it, wondering what the _hell_ that could be _,_ before another hook suddenly smashes through the windshield and attaches to the cockpit’s back wall. Screaming, she springs back into action.

She dials quickly. She’ll only have one chance, one phone call, before they jam her plane’s frequencies.

The phone rings.

And rings.

Wind howls through the windshield, she can hear the plane’s engines straining. The jet’s bar glasses shatter on the floor, sending shards flying through the air like glass bullets.

Finally, she picks up. “Lena?”

“Kara!” Lena cries into the speaker just as one of her engines erupts in flames outside. “Kara, they’re outside my plane! I think they’re trying to board the plane!”

“Lena—what are you—”

“Kara, they’re coming!” Lena screams as one of the plane’s windows is broken and a grappling hook smashes through it. Lodges into the opposite side of the fuselage, latches there.

“Lena, where are you?” Through the phone, Lena can hear the panic. The rise in Kara’s voice.

“Call _Kate_!” Lena yells just as another grappling hook shatters through another window. She hits the floor, keeping low. “Call Kate Kane! I’m in the air! She’ll know—”

The line goes dead.

The entire plane shudders. Lets out an agonizing, bone-chilling groan. Heart pounding, Lena feels as if the entire fuselage is about to rip apart as it slowly tilts upward, the force of their speed and the drag of the plane creating a tremor that rattles in her very bones. She loses her balance under the sudden pitch and tumbles backwards towards the tail. And then, a loud crack as one of the wings tears off completely, flutters away into the dark void.

Gripping the leg of a table, Lena tries to lift herself back up, but the force of their angle is too great. She collapses backward. They’re almost completely vertical in the air. Chest heaving, she feels herself growing light-headed. Oxygen is slipping out the broken windows. Another grinding crack and the other wing rips off. Terrified, Lena’s eyes flash out a window. The only reason she isn’t plummeting to her death is the four grappling hooks and lines attaching her wingless fuselage to the cargo plane above. Another gasp rips up her throat as she finally realizes what’s happening. They’re taking her plane. They’re taking _her_.

###


	4. Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the extremely long wait on this. I was defending and submitting my PhD, so the last couple months have been pretty hectic. Hopefully this makes up for it!

**Zor-El—**

In seconds she’s over the Rockies. The Mississippi. Appalachia.

A minute later and she’s hurtling across the Atlantic. Gibraltar. Malta, and then the Levantine.

“Thirty-five degrees north by thirty degrees south, Kara,” patches Kate in her ear. “Get in that range and you’ll be able to hear them.”

Changing her angle, Kara hurtles through the atmosphere. So fast she almost can’t breathe. It isn’t until she’s over the dark waters of the east Levantine in the Mediterranean that she finally sees it, and it’s a sight to steal the air from her lungs.

A cargo plane blinks in the distance, heading south towards Tunisia. And hanging vertically by four huge cables almost five hundred feet below it, is Lena’s private plane. It sparks in the atmospheric darkness, flashing with broken electrical wiring. The wings have been completely torn off, unable to withstand the pressure of flying 700mph flat into the wind. It’s just a fuselage now, dangling like bait from fishing line. It practically knocks the wind out of Kara, knowing Lena’s trapped inside. Alone, and petrified.

“ _No_ ,” Kara screams and then rockets towards the hanging fuselage.

She lands outside the plane hard, gripping the metal paneling around the windows. The force of her impact sends the entire plane swinging dangerously in the air. Above her, Kara hears shouting. Bullets crack against her shoulders, the plane’s fuselage as she climbs up towards the door. Wind screams in her ears as she reaches the nose, and she rips off the door. Crashes inside.

“Lena!” Kara roars, eyes wild. The plane’s interior is in chaos. Oxygen masks whip violently in the wind. Entire chairs have toppled over, become dislodged and catapulted to tail at the pressure of the fuselage’s angle and speed. The icy atmosphere howls through some of the shattered windows, now sucking out air and light and debris like tiny black holes. Dread sinks like poison in her veins.

“ _Lena_!” Kara screams.

“I’m here!”

Spinning towards the sound of her voice, Kara sees her.

_Relief_.

Instantaneous. Almost crippling. Panic comes a second later.

Lena’s trapped at the bottom of the fuselage beneath a tangle of seats, tables, everything that fell backward when the plane was dragged upward. In a blink, Kara is at the bottom. Terrified, she seizes two chairs, speeds upward, launches them out of the plane, and then returns. A table goes next. Finally, she can see Lena more clearly. Green eyes meet hers in a torrent of fear and desperation powerful enough to set her on fire.

“Kara,” Lena gasps, reaching through the gap between a chair’s armrest and seat, trapped. The Luthor reaches for her, _reaches_ for her, hands shaking, eyes begging. When Kara throws two more chairs aside, she’s able to grasp Lena’s arm.

“Hang on!” she cries. “I’m going to get you out of here!”

Hands shaking, Lena nods, terrified, eyes leaking tears. “Okay,” she whispers. “Okay.”

For just a beat, separated by debris and broken tables and glass, the wind screaming around them, the entire world heaving, Kara goes still, her grip unbreakable on Lena’s arm. “ _I am not—leaving—you_ ,” she swears, eyes locked with Lena’s. “But I have to dig you out. Do you understand?”

Throat working, Lena nods. Trembling, the Luthor releases her, withdraws her arm as Kara seizes a bar cabinet and drags it up the fuselage. One by one, Kara grabs broken chairs, coffee tables, a couch, and launches them out of the plane. When Lena is finally freed, Kara locks an arm through a wall handle to brace herself, and with the other grasps Lena’s outstretched hand.

She pulls Lena to her and they collapse into one another, so close Kara can feel Lena’s breath on her neck. Gasping for air. The way the Luthor’s hands grip fistfuls of her cape.

“You came for me,” she pants.

“Of course I did,” Kara cries, looking up towards the nose. “The pilot?”

“Dead.” Lena slips in her arms. The Luthor’s eyes roll, a choking sound coming from her lungs. “The cabin—” she gasps, “is depressurized—I can’t… breathe.” Her chest heaves, clawing for air that barely exists at this altitude.

Gritting her teeth, Kara gathers Lena in her arms and releases the wall. “Hold on, as tight as you can. _Tight,_ Lena.” Hovering upright in what used to be the plane’s aisle, Kara rises through the plane’s fuselage, protecting Lena’s head under her chin. The Luthor buries her face into her neck, whispers something there Kara can’t hear.

Lungs scorching with fury, Kara flies them out of the plane’s open door, gazes upward, heat already gathering in her eyes, at the cargo plane. And just as she sees the outlines of gun barrels lower at her, she shoots from the plane. Barrels towards the earth as fast as she can without breaking Lena’s spine.

They fly over the eastern Mediterranean. Cold, shapeless water beneath them. To the north, every so often, the flash of a lighthouse, like a distant heartbeat. When she begins to feel Lena shake, Kara knows she should stop. Find a place to get the Luthor’s feet on solid ground. She angles towards the shore. Lights gleam like a line of stars along the ragged edge of the earth. Slowing, she dives lower, trying to be gentle. She surveys the landscape, finds a place on the sea bluffs far enough away from civilization that their landing won’t raise any alarms.

When they finally touch down, Lena doesn’t let go. Instead, she heaves for air, hands gripping Kara’s cape as if it’s the only thing holding her to the earth. She sinks, and Kara goes with her, until they both kneel on the ground, clutching each other. Though she does not shake, Kara feels her own fear still burning in her eyes. Adrenaline crawling over her skin. It makes her hold Lena tighter.

“It’s okay,” Kara murmurs. “You’re safe.”

Finally, Lena loosens, only slightly. Just enough to pull away and press her forehead to Kara’s, her breath shivering from her lips. “Kara,” she whimpers. Her hands slip to Kara’s face. Trembling fingers weaving through golden hair. It makes Kara shiver, how close they are. “Are you hurt? I thought—I thought I was—”

“Never,” Kara whispers when Lena opens her eyes. Eye contact like sunlight after a storm. Radiant. Revelatory. She can’t let go of her. She won’t ever let go of her. “As long as there is breath in my lungs. Never.”

Lena swallows. Her eyes close, brow furrowing, head still bowed to Kara’s. They sit like that for a moment. Breathing each other in. Realigning. A planet and a sun, orbiting once more. Kara swallows, aching to be closer, though she dares not move. Instead, she sits frozen, waiting for Lena to find anchor again. But there is a deeper want, a deeper hope, clawing in Kara’s chest, that Lena won’t pull away. That instead, she’ll come closer, she’ll close the gap between them. Eyes opening, Kara’s eyes dip down to Lena’s lips. And for a moment, in the pause between heartbeats, it feels as though Lena is only a breath away from doing it.

But instead, the Luthor opens her eyes and finally pulls away.

She stumbles to her feet, eyeing Kara. Shy. Startled. Takes a few steps away. The loss of contact feels like a flame suddenly extinguished, leaving only a chill, deep and familiar now. A distant memory of infinite space tugs at Kara. Drifting through the darkness, alone. Isolated. The cold, circling stars like grieving mothers with lanterns. Still kneeling, she watches Lena walk away.

“Where are we?” the Luthor murmurs, rubbing her neck.

Kara glances around, as if the bare earth could give her some kind of hint. “I think we might be in Turkey. Somewhere.” She stands, watching Lena. “I thought we should land. Let you catch your breath?”

Lena nods, eyes on the ground. “Thank you.” She pulls in a steadying breath, looks up at Kara. “I didn’t know who else to call, who else I _could_ call.”

It stings, hearing of her hesitation. But Kara just tries to give her a brave nod. Smiles sadly. “I’m glad you called me.” A heavy pause, then she adds more quietly, “Please don’t ever think you can’t call me.”

Lena swallows, seems to register the sadness in Kara’s words. It makes her take a step forward. “You don’t have any questions?” she asks her.

Kara shifts on her feet, uneasy, unsure. “I don’t—” she shakes her head, “—want to push, or involve myself in something when you don’t want me… involved,” she tacks on at the end, realizing how raw it sounded. “I’m just glad I found you in time.”

Lena doesn’t miss the defeat in Kara’s voice. It strikes a counterpoint in her expression, a reflection, which softens. “I was in Jordan,” she offers. “I’m working with Kate Kane, trying to get a few steps ahead of Lex on Leviathan, and whatever he’s planning.”

Another sting. That she would involve Kate, that she had purposefully left Kara out. “That sounds dangerous. Did he do this to you?” She tries to quell the way her voice cracks, like granite breaking under furious pressure. “Did Lex plan that attack?”

“I don’t think so,” Lena considers slowly. “Whoever those men were… they were paramilitary, or something. Special forces. Lex doesn’t have that kind of muscle. If I had to guess, I think it was Leviathan.” Lena seems to realize something then, her expression clearing. “And I don’t think the attack was meant for me. Lex took my plane, left Amman before I did. So I took his. Whoever those men were, they attacked Lex’s plane thinking he was inside. They didn’t want me. They wanted him.”

“Do you think Lex knew the attack was coming, and that’s why he took your plane? He was willing to let that happen to you?”

A huff of sarcastic laughter escapes the Luthor, and she lifts a brow. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Kara’s jaw clenches, teeth grinding. “I could take him to the bottom of the ocean, and leave him there.”

Lena smiles despite herself. “That would be murder,” she warns, half-joking. Her smile falls quickly, replaced with an expression of clarity, gratitude. And deeper there, a hint of affection that she used to reserve only for Kara. “I would probably be dead if it wasn’t for you,” she murmurs. “Thank you.”

Kara looks away, unsure how to respond to that. Swallows roughly, hating that the revelation of her identity has only caused the Luthor to treat her only as Supergirl now, a hero to be thanked, to be praised and revered and held at a distance. That she isn’t Kara anymore. That their bedrock of trust has crumbled along with her lies. She hates Lena’s gratitude. It’s eating her alive.

“Kara.” It’s said quietly. Without a hint of hostility or anger. Lena says her name with soothing intimacy, a tenderness only years of knowing one another could summon. “At the gala, you told me that it was better to have me hate you, then to not have me at all.”

Kara’s breath locks in her lungs, freezes over, as she braces for whatever comes next. Lifting her chin, she watches Lena, ready for the strike. But it never comes.

Instead, the Luthor’s voice grows even softer. “I don’t hate you.” She swallows, a watery film over her eyes that shines like sea glass. “I could never hate you. I was just so… hurt by you. I was in—” She clamps her jaw shut, wincing as if someone had poured acid on a deep wound.

Kara would fly into the sun, drift endlessly across time and space, to hear Lena finish that sentence. Desperate, she takes the tiniest step forward. Freezes. “What?” she practically begs.

Lena shakes her head, as if to clear it. “It doesn’t matter. But I wanted to tell you that, I _should_ have told you that on the hotel balcony. I was just—overwhelmed. I couldn’t think.”

“I know the feeling.”

“I’m trying,” Lena whispers, watching her, unblinking, unwavering. Expression as open and unfathomable as the universe above them. “I _am_ trying. To reach you, again.”

A lump rises to Kara’s throat, summoned by the first pang of hope she’s felt in months. A slight smile touches her lips, still sad, still wounded, but so full of courage that it almost brings tears to her eyes. She stares at Lena, electricity snapping between them. She whispers, half-playing, half-heartbroken, “Can you try harder?”

At this, Lena smiles softly. Nods beneath the shifting universe. “I can try.” They stand suspended like that for a moment. Finally, Lena shifts towards the sea, wraps her arms around herself, shivering. “Will you take me home now?” she asks.

Kara remembers her sister’s words. _You have to give her time._ “Of course, I will.”

She can’t quite meet Lena’s eyes when she steps close. Ducks an arm around her waist, and when the Luthor nods, dips to pick her up. She detects it faintly, the uptick in Lena’s heartbeat at the sudden closeness. It affects Kara, too. Green eyes flicker to hers, quickly fall, and Kara almost wonders if Lena can hear how her own heart pounds, as if in answer. The faint scent of Chanel perfume, and below that, jasmine. Overwhelming. Kara takes a deep breath, trying to focus. Before she takes off, she says to Lena, “Take my cape, wrap it over you.” When she gets a questioning look, she adds, “It will help insulate you from the cold air.”

Reaching, Lena brings Kara’s cape around, pulls it over her.

Head tilting upward, Kara looks to the stars. “Okay,” she warns. “Three… two…” She bends her knees, “One.” And they lift into the air.

Lena huddles close for the entire journey back, trying to salvage any warmth from Kara’s body that she can get. Soon, the bright lights of National City appear through the pale clouds below and Kara angles downward. Glides through the high-rises and cell towers like a ribbon rippling gently in the wind until the right building comes into view. When they finally touch down on Lena’s penthouse balcony, Kara helps steady the Luthor as she drops from her arms, shivering uncontrollably. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks Lena.

“I’m fine,” she says, rubbing her arms, “I’m going to have a very hot shower, a cup of tea, and then go straight to bed.”

Kara nods, suddenly restless at the thought of leaving. The adrenaline returns, thoughts scattering to images of Lena trapped in the fuselage, the tattered plane howling through the atmosphere, the desperate relief when her Lena’s seared into her own. All of it at once. It sets Kara’s bones vibrating. She wants to stay. God, she wants to stay. She wants to spend the entire night wrapped around Lena. She wants to protect, and promise, and soothe _._ She wants to sink into her.

But Lena backs away, drifting towards the rituals in her apartment that will help relieve the night’s terrors. Kara knows Lena still needs distance, though she aches hopelessly that she will be invited in. But there remains one request she can’t stifle. “Lena,” she murmurs, stopping the Luthor in her tracks. “I know I don’t have any right to ask anything of you, but,” despite how she tries to be steady, Kara’s voice catches, “I’m begging you: as long as you continue going after Lex, _please,_ wear the watch. So if you need me,” she attempts a smile, but it comes out like a wince, “I can find you.”

Lena takes a few steps backward towards the door, nodding faintly. “I’ll wear it.”

“Okay.”

And when the glass doors close, Kara sighs. Retreats to the balcony’s edge, and forcing herself not to look back, she launches into the blind night.

##

**Luthor—**

Steam from Gotham’s inner-city underground chases her heels as Lena moves down the deserted alleyway. Hands shoved deep in her coat, her eyes trace the doorways she passes carefully, looking for the one that matches Kate’s instructions. Light blue. A small pride flag in the lower corner of the window. Cracked lettering that should read _Mamasita’s._

Three-quarters of the way through the alley, Lena finds the place and steps inside. The smell of laundry detergent, lint, dank water flowing through pipes, hits her like a tidal wave inside the laundromat. Harsh fluorescent lighting. She slides past several young patrons lifting clothes out of dryers and washing machines, all eyeing her curiously, so out of place in an A-line black Dior business dress and peacoat. Kate should have told her to dress in sneakers or something. Not that she has owned a pair of _sneakers_ in the last ten years…

When she reaches the back of the laundromat, she pushes through another nondescript door and into a hallway. The scent changes as she treads down the corridor. Detergent becomes overrun by the heady and mouthwatering smell of chilies and cilantro. When she twists the handle on the next door, she steps into a small, windowless restaurant. It’s tiny, tables crowded together in haphazard arrangements to maximize the space. There’s an air of privacy to this place as she catches some of the serving staff’s eyes. And as she moves further inside, she knows beyond a doubt that this restaurant is definitely not filing taxes or passing any health code inspections.

She spots Kate in a far corner table, and when the vigilante glances up, she gives Lena a slight nod in greeting.

“I know I told you I wanted our meetings to be clandestine,” Lena says when she reaches the table, “but this is overkill.”

“It’s just a restaurant.”

“Funny,” Lena says, surveying the small establishment. Noting the peeling linoleum. The stains on the ceiling. Plastic tablecloths. “I hear ‘restaurant’ and I think, a place not hidden behind a laundromat.”

Kate furrows, regarding the Luthor behind a somewhat exhausted expression. “I didn’t realize you didn’t like Mexican food.”

“Not when it’s served on a paper plate.”

Kate spreads her hands, tries to explain, “It’s really good, authentic—”

“If I wanted really good authentic Mexican food, I’d go to Oaxaca.”

“Well,” Kate sighs, leaning back in her chair while folding her arms behind her head, “I’ve already ordered the first round of mezcal. So, I’ll either be drinking one with company,” and she gestures to the open seat across from her, “or two by myself.” She flashes Lena a roguish grin.

With a glare, Lena sits. As she slips out of her coat, an elderly woman sets a menu in front of her, says she’ll be back in a couple minutes. A beat later, a waiter sets an entire bottle of Oaxacan mezcal in front of Kate.

“I didn’t realize an entire bottle was considered a first round,” Lena observes.

Kate just smiles. Pours the drinks into tiny clear glasses. “Don’t eat the worm,” she warns. “They say it’ll make you hallucinate.”

Lena eyes her glass, tips it slightly to have a look at the mezcal. “Did you go through my notes?”

“Sure did.” Kate takes a sip of mezcal, then says, “You remember Edward Nygma?”

Lena blinks, surprised. This wasn’t where she anticipated they’d begin their discussion. The memory of cold steel pressed to her throat makes her shift in her seat. Nygma’s purring accent in her ear. “How could I forget,” she murmurs.

Kate runs a tattooed finger over the rim of her glass, watching Lena. “Did you know Edward Nygma is an immigrant?”

“Well, the accent certainly was a big hint.”

“The name he went by before coming to the United States,” Kate says slowly, eyes drilling into Lena’s, “was Ahmad Nazir.”

Lena feels her blood run cold. Intuition flickering. “What?” she murmurs.

“He grew up in the North Sinai Governate of Egypt, in a city called Arish.” Kate chews on her bottom lip, shakes her head, thinking. “Arish borders the Gaza strip, which, based on the notes you gave me, is where Miranda and Lex are apparently trying to purify the water supply.”

“Ahmad Nazir,” Lena breathes, still processing. A flash of Miranda’s phone screen brightening in the afternoon with a name— _Ahmad Nazir_ —tugs at her. A connection forming. “Edward Nygma is Ahmad Nazir.”

“Yes.”

“And he has a direct line to Miranda Tate.”

“As you witnessed yourself.”

“She was quick to decline his call,” Lena says, remembering how Miranda had quickly tapped her phone, almost like a flinch.

“Obviously didn’t want you to see who it was. That was a good catch.”

“At the gala, Nygma had a message for Lex: told him he was coming too close.”

“Do you think he meant Lex was getting too close to finding Miranda?”

Doubt pulls Lena’s brow into a frown. “If Nygma and Miranda are connected, then surely, by the gala, Ngyma would’ve known my brother had contacted her. Two days later Lex was having hummus and grapes with her in Amman. I think Nygma meant Leviathan. Whatever Leviathan’s doing, Lex is coming too close.” Lena sighs. “And Miranda… she’s involved, I just don’t know how.” She takes her first sip of mezcal, tilts her head, surprised by how much she likes it. When she sets down her glass, she leans forward. “What the hell could be in Gaza?”

“I have no idea.” Kate scratches the back of her head, blue eyes glimmering in the muted light. “And maybe more importantly, why does Leviathan want whatever’s in Gaza?”

“It can’t be a coincidence.”

Kate finishes her drink, pours herself another. “Can you remember anything else from the conversation? Strange details that maybe you didn’t think were important at the time, but might give us a clue?”

Lena’s answer is cut short when the waiter reappears, wanting to take their order. Lena lets Kate order for them both, though she has a hunch she’ll regret that decision later. When the waiter retreats, Lena drums her fingers on the table. “We were just sitting on the patio,” she recounts, “drinking coffee… She had been reading a newspaper, written in Farsi.”

“So she has an accent?”

Kate’s surprised tone makes Lena blink. “Did I not mention that?”

The vigilante sucks in a deep breath, frustrated. “When you have these kinds of meetings, you can’t just focus on what the person is saying. You have to absorb the _person._ Everything about them. Their accent, their clothing, their body language. Jewelry, scars, ticks. All of the nonverbal clues are just as important, if not _more so_ , than what they’re actually saying.”

“Okay, well, I’m not trained in the art of espionage. But I’ll do better next time.”

“Could you place her accent?”

Lena sighs. “It was from the region, but I’m not a linguist. I couldn’t tell you which country. I will say that her English sounded more British-influenced than American. She told me this strange story about a pit prison, and the way she pronounced ‘crawling’ sounded like the Queen’s English.”

“Wait. _Wait_.” Kate holds out her hands, somewhat breathless. “Pit prison?”

“It was just a story.”

“About what?” Kate presses.

“About some prison in the Syrian desert. Apparently it’s just a pit, I don’t really understand how that works.” Lena waves her hands. “It was a story, Kate.”

Kate looks stricken. “It’s not a story.”

“Well, it was certainly a rhetorical tactic to intimidate me.”

“Why didn’t you include this in your notes?” Kate whispers.

“I didn’t think an anecdote about some mythical prison was relevant to our endeavors.”

Kate’s eyes widen. “It isn’t mythical. It’s _real_.” For the first time, Lena sees what looks like a glimmer of fear reflect in the vigilante’s eyes. “The Pit is a real prison.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been there.”

A heavy pause settles over the table.

“There are so few people who know about the Pit,” Kate ponders aloud, lost in thought. “Why would she bring it up? It’s almost like she was toying with you. Leaving you breadcrumbs. But why…?”

Lena doesn’t respond, still caught on the fact that Kate, for some reason, had been to this Pit. For the first time, it strikes her just how much she doesn’t know about Kate Kane. How labyrinthine and dangerous the entanglements, the gothic lore, that shrouds the Bats.

“I think you should stay with me at Wayne manor for the next couple days,” Kate continues, unaware of Lena’s reflections, “that’s where Bruce’s archives are. We can comb through every journal, every memory. _The Pit_ is the clue.”

The invitation seems to help shatter Lena’s dazed surprise, and her misgivings. “Why would Bruce’s journals and library be any help?” she asks.

“Because the only person to have ever escaped the Pit, was Bruce. It’s going to take two of us to cover all the archives. You should stay in Gotham, with me, at Wayne Manor.” When Kate sees Lena on the brink of protesting, she adds dryly, “There are over forty rooms, you can have an entire wing to yourself, if you’d prefer.” When Lena still doesn’t respond, Kate pushes, “Why are you hesitating?”

Lena runs a hand over one of her brows. “It’s just bad timing. I’m dealing with all these international investigatory agencies, the State Department, INTERPOL, ever since my plane was discovered dumped in Mali somewhere. And I wasn’t in it.”

Kate sits back in her chair, expression shifting, contrition pulling her lips into a frown. “I meant to ask if you were doing all right.”

Lena shifts in her seat, shakes her head as if to shrug off the subject. “I’m fine, just have some bruises.”

“You should have heard Kara on the phone. She was practically hysterical when she asked me for your location.”

There’s a slight pause as Lena tries to banish the memory of Kara’s eyes when they met her own in the dangling fuselage. The panic. The fear. The ruthless devotion. It makes her ache. “I don’t want to talk about Kara,” she says in a tight voice.

Frustration flashes across Kate’s face, prompts her to cross her arms. “So even after all that, you’re still on shaky ground with her?”

All she receives is a warning look.

“Look, I don’t want to get involved—”

“Then don’t.”

“But I do have one thing to say,” Kate presses. “And afterwards, I promise I won’t bring it up again.”

Lena takes a deep breath. Surrenders. “Go on, then.”

It’s a moment before Kate says anything. But when she does, her voice is very quiet. “Do you know who Rachel Dawes was?”

An unexpected question, but it sparks Lena’s curiosity. “The name rings a bell.”

“She was a prosecutor in the district attorney’s office in Gotham. Brilliant, driven, an idealist. She was also in love with Bruce.” Kate’s eyes meet Lena’s briefly, then fall to the glass in her hands. “She knew he was Batman. And Bruce, he resisted telling her for a long time. But after a while, he caved, couldn’t stand having her think that he was just some billionaire playboy that stood for nothing. For a while, everything was fine. Even though Rachel was with someone else, it seemed like she and Bruce were angling towards each other. That, one day, they might even be happy together. But then the Joker exploded onto the scene in Gotham, threw the city into turmoil. He discovered that Batman loved Rachel. She could be wielded as…” Kate meets Lena’s eyes again, and the gravity in Kate’s gaze makes Lena’s stomach tighten, “leverage,” the vigilante finishes heavily. “The Joker set up a game. At one end of the city, he trapped Gotham’s white knight, Harvey Dent, in a building wired with explosives. At the other end of the city, he did the same with Rachel. And right before detonation, he gave Bruce their locations, and a choice. He only had time to save one. Save Harvey, and he would save the soul of Gotham. Save Rachel, and he would save his own soul. He chose Harvey, and Rachel died. I think it’s why he disappeared. He tried to remain strong for Gotham, but in the end, it broke his spirit. The grief, and the guilt.”

There’s a long silence as Lena digests all this. The implications, the inferences she could draw. A certain one makes her swallow, heartrate quickening. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Isn’t it obvious? If anything like what happened to Rachel happened to you, I don’t think Kara would ever recover. Do you understand what I’m saying? It’s why she held out for so long.” Her head tilts then, a sadness buried in her eyes. “It’s why _I_ am holding out.”

Perhaps it was the arrogance, or the acerbic bite to her humor that kept the world at bay, that had prevented Lena from even considering Kate’s personal life, whether or not she had someone in it. But at the admission, Lena feels herself soften. She does have someone, and she had chosen loneliness over the possibility that that person could get hurt, simply for loving her.

“That’s all I want to say,” Kate finishes, sitting back in her chair.

Another silence spreads. Looking down at her hands, Lena finally says, “I don’t blame Kara for keeping her identity from me. Not anymore.”

“Then why not bring her into the fold? I don’t need to outline the advantages of having a Kryptonian on the team, do I?”

“You don’t. As for your other question, I… I have something to prove to Kara. To all of them.” Lena’s voice grows brittle. “I am not a villain. I am not the Luthor they make me out to be. And if I do this on my own, without goading or prompting, doesn’t that prove it? Once and for all.”

“I don’t think you have anything to prove. Especially to Kara. She knows who you are.”

“Then, when I’m ready, I’ll let her in.”

They’re interrupted by the arrival of their food. One of the waiters slides two plates of steaming enchiladas and another plate with what looks like an entire snapper soaked in red sauce onto the table. “ _Enchiladas rojas con chapulines y huachinango a la Veracruzana, señoritas. Buen provecho,”_ and he retreats.

As Kate rubs her hands together, looking positively gleeful, Lena takes a deep breath. “Does _chapulines_ mean what I think it means?”

Kate looks at her with a frank expression. “Grasshoppers.”

A heavy pause as Lena closes her eyes, lips pursing as she nods painfully. “Gross.”

##

**Zor-El—**

When Kara lands in the precinct parking lot, the police force is in chaos. Rain falls heavy and cold, makes her breath mist on the air as she gains her bearings. Officers dart to and from the main building, barking orders over radio, stand blocking press from slipping past their barricade. Reporters wave and froth on the barricade’s other side, hurling questions at the officers, the investigators, and now, at _her._ Ignoring the press, Kara darts past the barricade and waves down one of NCPD’s deputies.

“How did he escape?” Kara snaps at the deputy. “Is he Houdini?”

“He might as well be, Supergirl,” the officer sighs. “The investigators are around the corner.” And he jerks his head towards the opposite side of the lot.

The call had come at two in the morning. She recognized the voice of NCPD’s police captain. The low, brusque tone that said she needed to get to the precinct as soon as possible. She’d left immediately, dropped into National City’s police headquarters only moments later to confirm news that made her stomach turn—Edward Nygma had broken out. The thought that he could be lurking in National City’s streets or Gotham’s underbelly, plotting, scheming, targeting innocent people. A certain Luthor. It’s enough to set her teeth grinding.

Following the deputy towards the back of the precinct, Kara takes a deep breath, trying to derail that train of thought that keeps racing back to the gala. _If any Luthor gets in my way again, I’ll threaten whomever I please, however I please._

Blue and red lights flash blurry and ominous in the rain. “How could this have happened in a precinct full of police officers?” Kara doubles down, her frustration getting the better of her. “He was under constant surveillance, kept in isolation—”

“He had help, Kara.” Alex appears at her shoulder, dressed in a crisp suit and long trench coat. She looks just as aggravated as Kara feels.

“When did you get here?”

“About twenty minutes ago. This way,” and dismissing the deputy, she guides Kara around a corner of the building.

The destruction comes into view immediately, and Kara feels herself slow as she takes it in. Cinderblocks and red brick lay blasted apart and strewn across the black asphalt before a gaping hole in the precinct’s wall. Inside the wreckage, Kara sees the outline of a narrow bed coated in dust and debris. And beyond that, the faint pattern of iron bars.

Alex comes to stand beside her. “That was Nygma’s cell.”

“Someone planted an explosive?”

“More like the back wall was just… ripped off.”

Kara’s brow furrows. “Alien?”

Alex gives her a long look, then sighs. “Vigilante.” A brief pause, then she adds, “It was Batwoman.”

Kara goes still. Something sharp and fierce shivers through her, makes her hold her breath. Then she looks over at Alex, eyes wide. “What?” she says quietly.

“We have footage,” Alex explains, drawing her phone out of her coat pocket, “of the Batcopter attaching cables to the precinct wall and then accelerating to pull it off.” A few taps on her phone screen, and then Alex extends it so Kara can see the black and white surveillance recording. The dark silhouette of the batcopter appears in the righthand corner, indistinct and sinister, and as Alex described, rips off the wall in a single blow. A hazy figure stumbles out of the building, lifts an arm to shield the batcopter’s bright lights. Kara’s hands enclose slowly into fists. _Edward Nygma._ And in a blink, a net deploys from the batcopter, snatches Nygma where he stands, hauls him into the air and disappears.

Alex blackens the screen, then tucks the phone into her coat’s breast pocket.

“Why would she do this?” Kara growls, pushing aside loose, wet hair.

Alex responds with a very unexpected question. “Do you know where Lena is?”

Kara’s brow furrows. She shakes her head. “I haven’t seen her since… Turkey.” It was true, she hadn’t seen Lena for a week. For the first few days after the plane incident, Kara had tried to give Lena her space, let her recover without trespassing over the Luthor’s careful boundaries. But on the fourth night, restlessness got the better of her. She had gone to Lena’s building, and, like any normal friend would do, tried to have the concierge buzz Lena’s apartment. The call went unanswered. It went unanswered again the next night. On the sixth night, Kara couldn’t take it anymore. She landed on the Luthor’s balcony to find the entire apartment shrouded in blackness. Cold, and silent. Glass windows so dark she could see her worried reflection as she tried to peer inside, looking for signs of foul play, abandonment, and finding none.

“I don’t know where she is,” Kara sighs.

“I know,” Alex says, drawing Kara out of her worries. “She’s in Gotham.”

For a moment, the only sounds between them are the calls of officers directing the investigation. Reporters begging for details. The dull clap of raindrops as they hit the pavement. Kara isn’t quite sure why Lena’s location is pertinent to Nygma’s kidnapping, but she has a general inkling about where this conversation is heading, and it makes her eyes narrow. “What are you saying?” she asks. When Alex gives her a level look, Kara steps close. “Lena isn’t going after Edward Nygma,” she hisses, “she’s going after Lex. That’s what she told me.”

“Who’s to say they aren’t connected?” The question, and the implication it carries, hangs heavy over them. Kara’s jaw clenches, eyes closing briefly. “I am not _blaming_ Lena for this—” Alex starts.

“It sure sounds like you’re trying to!”

“Fine,” Alex placates, putting out her hands, as if to temper her sister’s reaction. Her breath releases in hot, clouding streams, evidence of her mounting frustration. “Let’s review the _facts._ Batwoman and Lena are working together to bring down Lex, that’s what Lena told you. So Lena traveled to Jordan and on her return trip was attacked by rogue operatives mid-flight. She was rescued by you, but only because _Batwoman_ knew her exact location. And now we have Batwoman breaking out Edward Nygma from National City police custody, the same man who turned up at a gala event and threatened _Lena’s_ life to send a message to Lex. And you want to stand there and pretend that all these variables aren’t connected?”

“You know why I don’t want to connect those variables,” Kara growls, barely audible over the rain.

Alex brings a hand to her head, pinches the bridge of her nose. “Lena Luthor is not above the law. Batwoman isn’t either. And neither are you, while we’re at it. You have to get a grip on your personal feelings, Kara,” Alex says quietly so no one else can overhear. Then, more loudly, veers back into the investigation. “Now, based on the evidence we currently have, Lena wasn’t here tonight. But she _is_ in Gotham. And I have a feeling that Batwoman has taken Edward Nygma and locked him up, possibly in some huge, fortified, isolated manor, outside of Gotham City. My first professional guess is that this undisclosed location,” her voice drops low again, “is Wayne Manor. And I have a _hunch,_ that Lena Luthor might be there as well.”

Kara just stands there for a beat, rain pouring down her arms, her fingertips, getting trapped in her eyelashes, as she stares at her sister. “Well, then,” she deadpans. “It looks like I’ll be making a detour to Gotham, doesn’t it?”

Alex spreads her hands, mouth drawn in a thin line. “If you wouldn’t mind.” And without another word, she turns on her heel and starts picking her way through the rubble to converse with some of the investigators gathered near the cell.

Face drawing into a resigned frown, Kara takes a few steps away from the precinct, and with a heavy sigh, springs into the air.

She doesn’t go in her suit. Instead, she flies back to her apartment, changes into a pair of jeans and a light sweater, and then launches back into the night. She takes her time getting to Gotham, tries to let the icy air keep her anxieties at bay. Ten minutes later and she lands outside of Wayne Manor. With a stiff spine, she summons some steel, and marches up to the soaring front door. Knocks twice, bold and strong.

“Kate, it’s Kara,” she shouts. “Open the door.”

The stone manor glowers down at her. Perturbed, melancholy. No answer comes.

“Kate! I don’t know if you know, but _I_ ,” Kara announces with derisive cheer, “have x-ray vision. And I can see,” she drawls, eyes searing downward under her feet, past the soil, the granite, and into a yawning cavern below, “that your batmobile, your bat motorcycle, and your bat… helicopter… hover craft thing… are all parked in your subterranean batcave, so I know you’re home!”

Still no answer. Kara steps back from the door, hands on her hips. Eyes scanning the foreground, she catches the Italian car parked in the wide, gravel drive. Her eyes narrow.

“Kate,” she barks, turning back, “if you don’t answer this door right now, I will throw your Maserati to the _moon_!”

Kara almost stumbles backwards when the door suddenly opens, but it’s not Kate. Green eyes meet her own, curious and slightly amused.

Lena’s dressed plainly. A pair of blue slacks. A crisp white button-down, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Her raven hair is tied back, a sign that she’s hard at work on something. Kara sucks in a breath. It always did drive her a bit crazy how Lena could make even the plainest clothes look like something from a high fashion magazine. The line of her jaw; the elegance of her neck; the hint of smooth skin from one too many buttons left unfastened on her shirt. It’s enough to make Kara wonder if Kryptonians could suffer self-combustion on earth. Clearing her throat, she finally manages a quiet, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Lena answers. Crosses her arms over her chest, leaning against the doorway. “The moon?” she inquires, referencing Kara’s threat.

There’s a brief beat, then—“I could do it,” Kara retorts, as if the Luthor had dared her.

A smile tugs at the corners of Lena’s mouth. “I have no doubt,” she says. Then lifts a brow. “You just better never do that to one of my cars.”

Kara hums a laugh, somewhat sadly. “Never the Bentley.” She eyes Lena, who regards her behind a soft, albeit slightly restless, gaze, as if she’s trying to measure something. There’s a space of silence as they watch each other. Grows taut, grows oppressive. Something reflects in Lena’s eyes, deepens there. An intensity, a pull almost like gravity that for just a moment, Kara thinks looks like longing. It makes her breath grow shallower. Tension builds in the quiet, crackling like static, makes Kara desperate to step forward, draw closer to her. But she resists the urge, swallows instead. “I’m looking for Kate,” Kara finally tells her, voice somewhat uneven.

Whatever was there in Lena’s gaze is quickly snuffed out. “I heard.” She tilts her head towards the gloomy hall behind her. “She’s in the library.” And then she moves aside, an invitation to come inside.

There’s a slight moment of hesitation where Kara feels like she stands on the precipice of something, more than just a doorstep. She catches Lena’s eyes, deep, dark green in the half-light of the mansion. Then, she steps inside.

###


	5. Alignment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, so so sorry for the insanely long wait on this. This year has been quite the ride, but hopefully I can make up for it with a very long chapter?? It's a bit of a slower chapter pacing-wise, but I promise more action in the next one :) Hope you enjoy!

**Alignment**

**Luthor—**

“So this is Wayne Manor,” Kara observes, just a step ahead of Lena. The Super’s eyes scan the vaulted ceiling, lost in shadow, the black and white portraits lining the stone walls. Vaguely, Lena wonders how far Kara is reaching with her eyes—if she’s seeing past the walls and into the rooms beyond, past even those and out onto the grounds. Across distant Gotham. Kara looks back at her. “It’s creepy.”

The blunt description makes Lena huff a laugh. “It could use some skylights,” she admits. “Apparently it’s over two hundred years old.”

“So there’s two hundred years’ worth of ghosts to haunt it.”

Lena trails behind as Kara treads down the long entryway hall, pausing to look briefly into the darkened rooms they pass. When she comes to a large portrait hanging over an ornate sideboard, Kara stops. “Who’re they?” she asks, voice muted in the manor’s oppressive quiet.

Lena comes to a stop beside the Super, also peering up at the frozen faces. “Some of the ghosts,” she replies, flashing Kara a knowing look. “Thomas, Martha, and Bruce Wayne.”

It’s a moment before Kara remarks quietly, “They look so sad.”

“Most families like the Waynes are. Too much tragedy.” Lena grimaces, mind flashing back to an estate that looks exactly like the Waynes’, hundreds of miles away, haunted by a different family with its own bloody legacy. Her legacy. “I should know.” She feels Kara look over at her, and the compassion she finds there makes her swallow, drop her eyes. Part of her still hates the way the Kryptonian can disarm her so easily; her warmth and courage wielded as tools that could so effortlessly pick the locks guarding Lena’s past, her memories, her secrets. But there’s another part of Lena, a part that has stretched and strengthened and grown over the last three years that _craves_ Kara’s intuitiveness with her. Hungers for it.

Restless, Lena retreats from the portrait, starts making her way down the yawning hall. “Kate’s back this way.”

She hears Kara trailing behind her, and resists the urge to fall into step with her. When they reach the end of the hall, Lena leads the Kryptonian into a wood-paneled, two-story library. The room is warmer than most in the manor—enriched with the smell of old ink and leather-bound paper. Luxuriates in worn couches and velvet sitting chairs. At one end sits a grand piano, and Lena catches her tense reflection in the polished black lid as she leads Kara deeper into the library.

“This room has over ten thousand books,” she explains, trying to sound casual, “and about two hundred of Bruce’s personal journals. I should know because I’ve been combing through each and every one of—”

“I looked for you,” Kara interrupts, turning on the spot. Fixes Lena under a searching stare.

Lena freezes, startled by the Kryptonian’s seriousness. Urgent, and somewhat injured. “When?” she murmurs.

“A few nights ago. I came to your penthouse to check on you. You weren’t there.”

The soft thrill Lena feels at the revelation that Kara had come looking for her, had worried about her, is faint beneath the sear of guilt she feels at having left the Kryptonian without warning. She opens her mouth to speak, but only ends up taking a slight breath. Defenseless.

“A week of silence,” Kara adds quietly, though Lena doesn’t miss the accusation buried in her tone, “after I found you being dragged through the atmosphere in a plane fuselage? Not a word from you?” The Super swallows, shifting on her feet. “That’s unfair.”

“Kara—”

“You scared me,” she whispers, and Lena goes still when a watery film coats Kara’s eyes. Makes them glitter in the manor’s velvet half-light.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I should have called.”

Kara’s eyes close, and she breathes in a deep breath. “Okay.”

Lena feels the subject drop as Kara lowers into an armchair, bathed in the pale moonlight pouring in from a nearby window. “We’re in the library,” she shrugs, changing the subject, “so where’s Kate?”

“I don’t know. She was here when I left.”

Kara taps her fingers along the arms of her chair. She looks agitated. Eyes darting, absorbing everything, looking everywhere but at Lena. A long silence envelops the room. Swollen with all the unsaid things piling up between them.

But finally, Kara combs a hand through her golden hair. “You know,” she remarks, surveying the second floor of the library, the general gloom of the place, “if Kate was a house, she would be this house.”

A soft smile touches Lena’s lips at this, mostly grateful that Kara is trying to lighten the mood. “I have to agree.”

The light near the library’s entrance flickers, and both look up to see Kate Kane finally wander into the room. When Kate sees Kara, she slows, eyes snapping to Lena, then back to Kara. She takes a deep breath.

“Oh, boy,” Kate says uneasily. “So, this must be what it felt like to step into the No Man’s Land between the western and eastern fronts.”

Lena rolls her eyes, but doesn’t miss the dark look Kara shoots the vigilante’s way.

“Did you call her here?” Kate asks Lena.

“Actually, I came here to talk to you, Kate,” Kara cuts in, annoyed. “We have surveillance footage of you kidnapping Edward Nygma. The Bat helicopter was sort of a dead giveaway, so for future kidnappings, if you want to remain anonymous, I’d suggest maybe a nondescript getaway car?” She shrugs, staring frankly at Kate. “Or a bike? If you can bear to get behind the wheel of something that isn’t an Italian sportscar or an airborne machine that looks like it could carpet-bomb us into oblivion.”

Kate laughs. Folds her arms across her chest. “So why are you here?”

Kara’s eyes flicker to Lena for a beat, then back to Kate. She fixes the vigilante with an obvious look. “You have to give him back.”

“I will. Once I’ve asked him some more questions.”

Kara waves her hands, incredulous. “This is illegal. You having him here is _illegal._ You know that, right?”

At this, Lena steps closer to the Kryptonian, hands in her pockets. “Kara, look, we—”

“Lena,” Kara cuts her off, “I would advise you stay out of this. Right now there’s nothing linking you to the kidnapping, but the second you say something, your immunity is gone.”

“She’s right,” Kate emphasizes, “zip it.”

Indignation sparks through Lena like an electrocution. Her brows lift sharply at Kate. “ _Zip—it—_?”

“Hand over Nygma,” Kara says measuredly, “and National City won’t press charges.”

“You might be Supergirl, but you don’t have the power to offer those terms unilaterally. I appreciate the thought, though.” Kate’s gaze sharpens. “I’m not handing him over.”

An arrogant laugh barks from Kara. She smiles a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Then I’ll _take_ him.”

Kate digests that threat with a smirk. “You’ll have to find him first.”

“I’ll find him in two seconds flat, I have _x-ray_ vision.”

“Which can’t penetrate lead, if I recall,” Kate smiles.

A tense beat as the Super and vigilante size each other up.

“I’m not leaving here without Edward Nygma, Kate!” Kara finally rises from her seat, and for the first time, Lena sees Supergirl standing there, dressed plainly, no cape, no symbol, but it’s Supergirl. Plain as day. It makes her shift her weight, irritated she’d missed the signs all these years.

“Well, you’re going to be here for a while, then, because he’s not talking.”

Finally, Lena steps forward. “Kara,” she says in a low tone, drawing the Kryptonian’s gaze, “just go home.”

Kara blinks, face falling. Hurt flashes in blue eyes as she registers Lena’s request—that she isn’t wanted. Lena’s stomach clenches as she watches the realization settle in Kara’s expression. It’s like watching a mountain crumble.

“Actually,” Kate suddenly says, unaware of wordless exchange between the Luthor and Super beside her. “He might talk to _you_.”

The suggestion seems to wake Kara up. Her eyes dart to Kate, narrow there. “What?”

“No,” Lena says, firm and uncompromising.

“This is a good idea, Lena. He might talk if Supergirl’s present.”

“Absolutely not. I am not putting her in the same room as Edward Nygma.”

“There goes your immunity,” Kara sighs, glaring at Lena.

“I have good lawyers,” she retorts.

Still not quite following, Kara shifts so she stands closer to Kate. “Talk to me about what?”

“Supergirl might be able to scare him into answering some questions,” Kate argues, trying to convince Lena.

“She’s not part of this—” Lena bites.

Kara whirls around on her. “And why aren’t I?” she demands, and the quick pivot in conversation makes Lena blink, off-balance. “I always seem to end up in the epicenter of your plotting or rushing in when your plans go awry. Whatever you two are doing,” Kara snaps, gesturing between Lena and Kate, “I’ve already had to save you—” she points at Lena, “ _twice._ ”

A strange mixture of impatience and hurt makes Lena snap back, “I didn’t realize that was such a problem for you.”

Quiet creeps in. Loaded, coiled.

Kara’s voice drops to a growl. Eyes as sharp as glass. “Don’t do that.”

Lena swallows. “Do what?”

“Reduce what I’m saying to something so base.” Kara’s expression shifts then. Anger melts into something that looks closer to fear. It makes Lena’s breath grow shallower. “I will always come for you. I would claw into the center of the sun if it meant saving you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to ask questions. It doesn’t mean I just have to accept this half-in, half-out place you’ve punished me with!” Desperate blue eyes sear into Lena’s. “You have to bring me in all the way, because I won’t survive if the next time I get a frantic call from Kate, I can’t get to you in time!”

The room stands suspended. Paralyzed with Kara’s words. The raw truth, painful and consuming. Without breaking Kara’s stare, Lena murmurs, “Kate…”

The vigilante takes the hint, nods grimly. “I’ll go,” she says, backing out of the room. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

Silence consumes them. The library is as still as a held breath. Lena regards Kara for a long moment, taking in how stiffly the Kryptonian stands. How she seems to practically vibrate under her admission, the tension between them.

Finally, Lena steps forward. “That’s what’s at the root of this: you’re worried that Kate—Batwoman—can’t protect me.”

A moment of stillness. Then, in a tone as unbreakable as steel, Kara says, “Not the way I can.”

The devotion in Kara’s eyes makes Lena swallow, averting her own. The organ beating in her chest quickens, skips, rattles the bars that confine it. “You feel I chose her over you?”

Kara’s eyes flash. “You _did_ choose her over me.”

Words like a lightning strike. Lena almost staggers beneath them. God, if Kara knew. If only she knew. That at one point, Lena had chosen Kara over everything. Over her name, over her brother, over her empire. It makes her ache, makes her want to howl and storm and claw at that infernal symbol on the Kryptonian’s chest, knowing she had chosen Kara. It had been Kara that had not chosen _her._ For years.

“If I could’ve had my first choice,” Lena explains, fighting every urge to send Kara away, suffocating every urge to bring her closer, “I’d be working with Bruce Wayne. But as you know, Bruce has disappeared, and will not be found until he _wants_ to be found. So I pivoted to the closest thing to Bruce Wayne—his only slightly less broody niece.” She points at the empty doorway where Kate Kane disappeared. Stares at Kara for a beat. “Leviathan is Bat territory, so I needed a _bat_ to be my guide.”

Kara doesn’t like it, but Lena can see her point has made an impact. Supergirl’s dealings with, and her knowledge of, the League of Shadows is very limited. They both know it. Kara glances away, takes a breath. Then, licks her lips and faces Lena again. “And what exactly is this bat guiding you towards?”

“A woman named Miranda Tate,” she answers swiftly, not missing a beat. If she’s going to let Kara all the way in on her plans, then she might as well do it efficiently. “I met her in Jordan. It’s why I was there.”

Kara’s brow furrows. She’s silent for a moment, then she rubs the back of her neck. Glances at Lena. “That name is familiar.”

That was the last response Lena expected. She leans forward, lips parting. “What?”

“Miranda Tate,” Kara repeats. “Brainy mentioned her. Once.”

“What did he say?”

“Not a lot. He just said that…” Kara appears to think for a minute, then says slowly, “he thinks Miranda Tate _is_ Leviathan.” Her eyes lift to Lena’s again, curious. “So who is she?”

“I don’t know. At first glance, she’s a humanitarian. But a humanitarian with some very strange stories and even stranger connections. Including Edward Nygma. His real name is Ahmad Nazir, I saw his name come up on her phone during our meeting. Kate made the connection between the aliases. He’s Miranda’s contact, but why they’re connected,” Lena shrugs, “I don’t know.”

Kara leans back slightly, folding her arms over her chest. “That’s why you kidnapped him,” she concludes, gaze level. “To find out.”

“We’re trying to lure Miranda out. If he’s a close associate, his disappearance could prove a threat to her.” Lena runs a hand over her brow, suddenly aware of how worn out she feels. “It hasn’t worked so far.”

“You’ve only had him for a few hours,” Kara points out.

The hint of encouragement in the Kryptonian’s tone makes a smile quirk at the corner of Lena’s mouth, already feeling Kara align, like a planet falling into orbit. “That’s right.”

“So, if—hypothetically—Supergirl were to ask him some questions, do you think that would be an effective tactic?”

Lena arches a brow. “Well, I don’t know. Supergirl would have to keep her cool…”

“I can keep my cool,” Kara says a little too quickly.

“I heard you gave him the ride of his life over the Pacific.”

“Yes, well.” Kara clears her throat. “That’s what happens when I’m—” she nods to herself, “blind with rage.”

A soft laugh escapes Lena. Fades. “Kara,” she sighs, “Supergirl and I haven’t always… agreed on where the line is. I don’t want to ask you to do something that breaks one of your values.”

“A conversation isn’t breaking any of my values—”

“He’s a kidnapped criminal without a lawyer present,” Lena outlines, her tone flat.

Kara chews on the inside of her cheek, conflicted. “I—” she struggles.

“You can’t do this,” Lena supplies, watching her.

“No, I can’t.” For a moment they just survey one another distantly, as if staring over the great chasm of their stalemate. Then, Kara starts to pace, and Lena watches her tread a line from the window to the opposing bookshelf. And back again. She’s about to pour herself a drink to release some of the tension snapping in her ribcage when Kara suddenly stops and faces her. “Do you have his phone?” she asks sharply.

A strange question, one that Lena can’t quite trace its path from their previous subject. “Yes,” she says, watching Kara fidget, a sign that she’s put something together. “Kate stole it a few hours before she broke him out.”

Kara takes a step towards her, expression hopeful for the first time this evening. “I may not be able to interrogate him, but I could just _listen._ ”

“Listen to what? One of us interrogate him?”

“No, a phone call. No interrogation.” Lena’s brow furrows, but Kara presses on, “Has he received any calls since you took him from the police station?”

“A few.”

“Any of them from a Jordanian number?”

At this, Lena rubs the back of her neck, feeling suddenly sheepish. “I haven’t actually been paying that close attention.”

“Maybe you should?”

Lena is quiet for a moment, thinking it over. “So, what? We wait for a Jordanian number to call, have him answer the phone, and just listen in?” She shakes her head, grimacing. “He could give her a code that he’s compromised, tell her to go underground. We could lose the trail completely with a single word—”

“Not if I’m standing there. I could heat-vision that phone to a crisp before he gets through two words of a code.”

“That’s intimidation.”

Kara lets her arms drop, a resigned look on her face. “I’ve kind of already crossed the intimidation line with Edward Nygma. So, too late to go back now.”

That was true. Lena had to admit, having Kara around was certainly an advantage. And if she was being very honest with herself, a comfort. She eyes the Kryptonian standing before her, then asks, “And you’re comfortable with this?”

“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Lena admits. She can’t help the slightly sly look she gives Kara, who brightens under it immediately.

“I can be more useful than just picking up buildings and catching jets in midair, you know.”

##

Kate had suggested they keep Nygma in the Lead Room, a term that made Kara’s face contort with fury, which only made Kate shake with laughter. The Lead Room was on the top floor of Wayne Manor, and as Lena learned when she first stepped foot inside, its name was quite literal. Every wall, including the ceiling, was lined with lead. Impossible to peer into for those with x-ray vision.

As they wait with Nygma’s phone in hand’s reach, Kara changes into her supersuit. Lena watches it materialize over her jeans and sweater.

When Kara hands Lena her glasses for safekeeping, there’s a warmth between them, as if Kara is handing over more than just a pair of glasses. It feels good, lifts Lena up, to be trusted with Supergirl’s identity. It makes her smile at the Kryptonian, who returns it tenfold until—

The iPhone starts buzzing, jolting them both.

“Show time,” Kate announces, rubbing her hands together. The vigilante grabs the phone off a table and then hands it to Kara, nodding towards the Lead Room’s door. “It’s definitely her. Jordanian country code. Better get in there before she hangs up.”

Lena watches Kara straighten, that familiar steely glance falling over her expression. And with a quick nod at Lena, Kara opens the door and sweeps into the Lead Room with the buzzing phone. Lena and Kate hurry to a small alcove outside one of the rooms sides, where a one-way observation window looks into the Lead Room. From inside, the window looks like a mirror.

“Answer it,” Kara says, tossing the phone onto the small table to which Edward Nygma sits handcuffed. “Now.”

From the window, Lena watches Edward’s eyes dart down to the phone screen, to the number blinking there, and then rise back to the Kryptonian.

“You won’t hurt me,” he wagers. “If you wanted to, you would have let me hit the water.”

“I told you not to mistake me for Superman,” Kara corrects. “And that _next time,_ I’d let you hit the water.” She slides the phone closer to Nygma’s hands. “Answer it,” she growls.

Under the pressure of Kara’s stare, Nygma leans forward, arm outstretched to tap the screen, but Kara grabs him first. “If you give her any indication of where you are, or who you’re with, I will ensure you spend another night out at sea. Maybe on a glacier this time.” Eyes blazing, she lets him go. “Now, answer it.”

Jaw clenched, Edward taps the phone and then growls, “Nygma.”

The voice that responds is female, lilted with a Middle Eastern accent. “Where have you been? I’ve called twice.”

“I’ve been a little tied up,” Nygma sneers, and receives a warning glare from Kara. “My apologies, Ms. Tate.”

There’s a displeased sigh, then Miranda says: “I’ve got a meeting set up with Sal Maroni tomorrow evening. Bamonte’s Restaurant, 8:30. You will go as my representative. He’s expecting you.”

Lena glances at Kate, catches the vigilante’s eye. Already this ruse has been useful. “Maroni?” she mouths, to which Kate just shakes her head, just as confused.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He will give you the codes for the shell companies, and I need you to ensure there are twelve separate entities.” There’s a brief pause, and then Miranda continues, her voice almost breathless with excitement, “We have twelve signals now, Ahmad, detected all over the globe.”

Nygma glares at the Kryptonian looming over him. “Very good, ma’am,” he says, and Lena can see he’s trying to say as little as possible without inciting Miranda’s suspicions. A difficult needle to thread.

There’s a pause on the other line, and for a moment, Lena wonders if that’s all they’ll get. But then Miranda’s voice echoes again, a bit more muffled now. “Maroni may want an update on extraction, but I want to keep as tight a lid on this as possible. So, if he asks, just tell him the element is very difficult to extract because it’s so unstable, but we have a sample. And more will be ready in time for the auction in Metropolis.”

Lena is practically giddy when she looks at Kate again. The vigilante has a deep smirk on her face, and gives her a satisfied nod as the conversation continues.

“I understand, ma’am,” says Nygma, and even Lena can detect the frustration in his tone from all his enemies are learning.

“And an update on your end?”

Nygma smiles, looking up at Kara. “Everything is going according to plan,” he replies calmly. There’s a brief pause, and then he adds, “Lena Luthor arrived in Gotham about a week ago.”

At this, Lena sucks in a deep breath. Pulse rising, she sees Kara’s fists clench by her side.

“Oh, fuck,” Kate murmurs beside her.

“She’s been sniffing around,” Nygma adds, eyes glittering. “I thought you might find that interesting.”

Kara is as stiff as a board, unblinking and rigid. Even from this distance, Lena can see she’s stopped breathing.

“I see.” A beat of silence on the phone. “I’ll take care of it.”

Nygma doesn’t say anything more, just stares up at Kara, a dare in his dark eyes.

“Don’t be late to the meeting tomorrow. Sal Maroni is an impatient, petulant man, but I need him.”

And the line goes dead.

“What did you do?” Kara hisses instantly, fists planted firmly on the table.

“I played by your rules, Supergirl. I spoke no code. I gave away no information about my whereabouts or company.” His chains clatter on the table as he spreads his hands. “I simply informed my colleague that there’s a very high-profile target in Gotham City. A target Ms. Tate will be very keen to have…” A smile breaks over his face, and he laughs through his last word, “eliminated.”

The ghost of a smile tugs at Kara’s mouth, a warning to Nygma that if he values his life, he better not play with her. “Threaten her again,” Kara murmurs, her voice a wick above a whisper.

“Kate,” Lena warns, already knowing what’s coming. “Get her out of there.”

Kate seizes the microphone that can patch into the Lead Room. “Supergirl, the call is over, leave the room.”

Kara doesn’t move a single muscle. Just bores down on Edward Ngyma as the man smiles up at her. “By tomorrow morning,” he revels, “Lena Luthor will have every bounty hunter, every thug, every crime boss and theatrical villain Gotham has to offer,” Nygma laughs, eyes gleaming maniacally, “ _slavering_ over that price on her head. Even Supergirl can’t be everywhere at once—”

Lena watches it happen. Watches the muscles in Kara’s shoulders harden, the line of her jaw ready to crack.

“—it won’t be long before one of them has her, and God, what they will _do_ to her—”

“ _Threaten her again_ ,” Kara bellows, advancing on him like a hurricane heaving out of the sea. Heat sears behind her eyes, glowing outward like two white-hot suns. The sight sends chills down Lena’s spine, stirs something primal in her stomach. “Do it!” the Kryptonian roars, looming over him like a god staring down at a cowering non-believer. The table between them snaps beneath the pressure of Kara’s grip. She tosses the pieces aside as if they were cardboard.

Kate bolts from the observation window, and in couple seconds, has flung open the door to the Lead Room. Lena doesn’t see what happens next as she dashes after Kate, but she hears Kate pleading with Supergirl to stand down, to leave the room. Just as she rounds the corner to get to the Lead Room, Supergirl explodes through the door, Kate right on her heels.

The Kryptonian rounds on Lena immediately, and the fury in her scorching eyes is enough to snatch the air from Lena’s lungs. It isn’t Kara anymore. It’s a star folding in on itself. It’s the planet’s liquid core unleashed. It’s a god.

“I have to secure Ngyma!” Kate shouts behind Kara, who stands shaking with the energy of an atom about to be split in half. “Can you deal with this?”

But Lena’s already moving. Heart racing, takes slow, gentle steps until she stands right in front of the burning Super, and then she stills.

“Hey,” Lena soothes. Places a hand along the side of Kara’s face, stooping to catch eyes like molten iron. There’s a moment of panic, instinct that screams at Lena to take cover from this heaving, scorching being, that before Kara’s gaze, she has placed herself in the path of utter annihilation. But something deeper keeps her rooted there. Something stronger than steel or the howling suns in Kara’s eyes. “Breathe,” she tells her. Softly. Tenderly. She brings the other hand to the back of Kara’s neck, fingers weaving into golden hair. “Breathe.” A beat passes, and she feels Kara settle into her hands, listening. “Come down.” A shudder passes through the Kryptonian. Her eyes dim.

Finally, familiar ocean eyes reappear. Lena smiles quietly. “There you are,” she murmurs.

Kara’s eyes lift to hers, calm and blue. Remorseful. “I can never do that again,” she murmurs, tilts her head back towards the door.

Lena can’t help the soft chuckle that hums out of her. “No kidding.”

##

**Zor-El—**

Kara stands outside in one of Wayne Manor’s many neglected rose gardens, numb. Trying to catch her breath. Reclaim her footing. She hadn’t intended to stay out there for so long, but the cool air feels good on her skin. Fills her lungs, clears her head. So she’s just continued to stand there, trying to breathe in steadiness, clarity, and breathe out her anger. Her fear.

She had come too close to losing control. Again. Her sister’s words echo in her mind— _I care about the line that separates you from them._ Kara pinches the bridge of her nose in the starlight. “This is getting dangerous,” she grumbles to herself.

“What’s getting dangerous?”

Startled, Kara turns to find Lena approaching from one of the garden footpaths, expression curious. Kara hadn’t even heard her footsteps or heartbeat—that’s how distracted she is. She straightens, squares her shoulders, as if the posture will help her sharpen her senses, too.

“I am,” Kara finally answers. Pauses as she watches the Luthor absorb that behind shrewd green eyes. “ _I’m_ getting dangerous.”

“You wouldn’t have hurt him,” Lena says. So certain.

“I wanted to.”

There’s a brief silence as Lena considers her. “If it makes you feel any better,” the Luthor offers, stepping forward, “I probably have dozens of bounties offering payment for my assassination on the dark web.” She stops a couple feet away from Kara, and shrugs. “So, adding a few more in Gotham is, honestly, a drop in the bucket, you know?”

“That makes me feel _worse_.”

Lena smiles weakly. “Sorry.” She shifts so her body tilts towards the nearest doors, gaze darting upwards towards the night sky. “I came to bring you back inside. If any satellite imagery catches you out here at Wayne Manor…”

_It’ll raise serious suspicions,_ Kara finishes in her mind. As she starts forward, Lena falls into step beside her and together, they slip back into the glowering house. They tread through the kitchen and then follow a gloomy hallway until they’re back in the library. Kara slows as Lena takes up a seat at a desk sitting by a bay window. She scans the room for Kate, but she’s nowhere to be found.

“I looked up Maroni,” Kara says. “He’s one of Gotham’s most infamous organized crime bosses. But I assume you already knew that.”

“I know who Maroni is,” Lena confirms, tapping awake her iPad. “He’s a brute.”

Kara watches for a minute as Lena sifts through what looks like her email, growing more agitated by the second. She feels something pressing in, building up. Those walls, once again pushing her out. Relentless and suffocating. “So what are you going to do?” she asks, drawing the Luthor’s eyes. “What’s the next move?”

Lena leans back in the desk chair, running a slender finger across her bottom lip, expression inscrutable. She says nothing, just sits, half-lit in moonlight, half in lamplight. Quiet.

A sinking feeling makes Kara take a deep breath, stomach knotting. “You’re still railroading me,” she murmurs. “After everything.”

“I’m not railroading you, Kara. I don’t know what my next move is.”

“But what are you doing?”

Lena blinks, and Kara can see her impatience building. “Well, right now I’m trying to figure out what to do with the information we learned from the phone call. That’s what I’m doing.”

Kara takes two huge steps towards her and says, “No, I mean— _what are you doing_?” She waves her arms in a large circular motion. “What is all this? Jordan, and Miranda Tate, your brother, Kate, and now Sal Maroni? How are all these things connected? And what are you planning on doing about it?”

The Luthor’s eyes drop. “’I don’t know’ is the answer to both those questions. I’ve told you pretty much everything I’ve discovered. Edward Nygma works closely with Miranda Tate, who is partnering with my brother—or so I assume—on a project in Gaza that I have a feeling has nothing to do with delivering clean water to poor neighborhoods. And tonight, we learned that Sal Maroni is involved. Something about twelve shell companies and an auction in Metropolis. And an element.” Her voice lowers on this word, slows, as if the word itself had a gravitational pull that drew all of Lena’s thoughts, all her attention, down on it. “Unstable,” she mutters, completely lost in thought, “hard to extract…” Lena looks up again, and when she sees Kara watching her closely, her gaze hardens. “Whatever my brother is up to, I’m trying to head it off. Whatever he’s planning, whatever heinous evil Leviathan is going to unleash, I plan on being the immovable wall that stops it.”

“Without me. You plan to stop them without me.”

Lena bristles at this. “I am capable of doing things without you, Kara.”

“I know you are, but you don’t have to!” Lena takes a deep breath, her eyes dropping again to the desk, where they fixate. A sign Kara knows well. She’s trying to keep steady, she’s trying to keep something bottled up. It only spurs Kara on. “Why keep me outside this?” she pushes. “I was there at the Luthor event, and then over the Mediterranean. And now here I am, once again, practically begging to help you, Lena. So why are you pushing me out—?”

“Because I’m trying to _heal_ , Kara!” Lena cries, rising from her chair like fire billowing from a fuel tank. Searing and wild. “And I can’t do that when I keep getting ambushed in my office, at gala events, in my own home! I can’t heal when every time I see you,” her voice grows choked, throat locking up with pain, “every time someone speaks your name, I turn to glass and _shatter_!” She pulls in a rattling breath, both hands braced desperate and white-knuckled on the desk as if it’s the only thing keeping her from collapsing. In her outburst, her eyes have grown bright with tears, and Kara stands paralyzed in their grip.

“Oh, God,” Lena practically pants. She sighs, catching her breath, and then shrugs out of her jacket. Tosses it onto the back of her chair before facing Kara again, a hand clutched over her face. “It’s not even that anymore,” she murmurs behind her hand. “It’s not that you kept me in the dark for so long.” Finally, her hand drops, and the agony on her face strikes a rebound in Kara, like an echo, that settles and reverberates painfully in her ribcage. “It’s—” Lena struggles, jaw clenching. Her head shakes, but a hand lifts to her stomach when she whispers in a raw voice, “It’s what _I_ did.”

It takes everything in Kara not to step closer. To give Lena space. So instead, she tilts her head, eyes wide, and repeats softly, “What you did?”

Lena nods, expression wrought with guilt. “With Myriad,” she chokes, breaths coming fast and shallow, “and _Non Nocere_. I betrayed your trust. Used kryptonite against you. It was just—I’m so— _ashamed_.” When her voice breaks, Kara can’t take it anymore. She steps towards her, but stops the second Lena’s hand flies out, warding her off. “Don’t,” the Luthor begs, teeth gritted. “I can barely look you in the eye.”

There’s a heavy beat as Kara takes her in, seeing now how hard Lena has battled to keep up pretenses, to reinforce those lofty walls, now only rubble. How all this time, she had thought Lena’s struggle had been over forgiving Kara—and perhaps a part of it was. But now, seeing Lena standing trembling in the half-light, eyes like glass, throat swollen with grief, Kara knows the struggle is no longer about forgiving Kara, but forgiving herself.

“Lena,” Kara soothes. Raising her hands, she takes a step forward. When the Luthor just watches her, she takes another step. And then another, until finally, she stands close enough to touch her. “Look at me,” she murmurs. Lena just swallows, eyes downcast, and so, gently, Kara runs her fingers from Lena’s elbow down the length of her forearm, until she grips Lena’s hand. She says again, “Look at me.”

When Lena’s gaze lifts to hers, the torment there makes Kara’s throat tighten.

“You shouldn’t—you have nothing to be ashamed of—”

“Don’t do that,” Lena growls, pulling her hand from Kara’s. “Don’t sweep it aside. I don’t deserve that.” She lifts her chin, trying to reclaim some kind of dignity. “I’m not looking for absolution. I want to fix it. Make it right.” Another rough swallow. “It scares the hell out of me how close I came… to becoming a _Luthor_ , as twisted up and abhorrent as my brother. And it’s eating me alive. I don’t deserve your pity. I don’t deserve…” Something glimmers there deep in Lena’s gaze, something raw and vulnerable. “So many things,” she whispers, and when her stare drops like a blink to Kara’s lips, Kara almost misses it. Almost. “Not until I fix this,” she swears.

Heart pounding, Kara slips, “I don’t pity you, Lena, I—”

The Luthor goes still. Suddenly her eyes are wide again, green as seaglass. “You what?” she whispers.

Kara says it a thousand times in her mind. Three words, over and over again like a heartbeat. But she doesn’t speak them aloud. _Not yet._ Instead she just pulls in a deep breath, places both her hands on Lena’s shoulders and says, “I would stake the fate of the world on you, Lena Luthor. I believe in you. I never stopped. We all lose our way. I have. What matters is if we find our way back, and be something better.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to show you that, independent _of_ you, I’m on the right side. I will always be on the right side.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, I know you’re on the right side.”

“Then why didn’t you just tell me?” When the Luthor’s hand presses to the place on Kara’s chest where the Kryptonian symbol for hope always rests, Lena finally releases the tears shivering across her irises. “Why didn’t you let me _in_?”

There’s a heavy beat as they stand suspended like that—Lena’s hand pressed to Kara’s chest, as if she were trying to reach through a plate of steel, break through to the place she wanted to be so badly but there was something in _her,_ in Lena Luthor, that made passing into that place impossible. It made Kara’s breathing uneven, shallow, watching this. And so, hoping with every ion of her being that it wasn’t too late, Kara lifts a hand to her chest to place it over Lena’s and opens the door. With wide eyes, she says, “I am Kara Zor-El.”

She puts everything into saying her name, to the one person she has always wanted to hear it. “That’s my name, my _birthname._ Zor-El.”

At this, Kara catches the tiny furrow between Lena’s brow, the hope that takes root there. “I was born on Krypton in the Sol 3233. On my home planet, a single day consists of forty-six hours. I was born on the forty-second. We circled a red sun, almost three times the size as earth’s sun.” She starts with details like these, knowing the scientist in Lena won’t be able to resist listening. “I spent twenty-four years trapped in the Phantom Zone,” Kara continues, watching Lena’s eyes thaw, begin to brighten under these small, significant truths, “drifting through the emptiness of space, alone, untouched by time. I suppose, on this earth, that makes me fifty-one? Which—the time-space continuum—is… so weird.”

At this, Lena can’t help but let out a soft laugh. Kara smiles faintly, then keeps going—

“Twice I have known the pain of losing my whole world. The first was not of my own making, but that of my people, who destroyed our planet through ambition and unrelenting destruction. We drilled into the planet’s core, and ensured our own annihilation. But the second time _was_ of my own making, in the Fortress of Solitude. When you told me there had never been a single honest moment between us.”

Lena’s eyes close painfully, and there’s a moment of quiet as they both absorb that. But Kara takes a breath, and then says, “You know who I am. There are just details that are… stranger than maybe what you thought. But you know me,” she pleads in a whisper. “Sometimes I think you knew me before we were even friends. It was your idea that I become a journalist. I don’t know how you knew—that I love finding the truth, fighting for the truth. You opened that door for me. I still love Star Wars,” she adds, changing tack, reaching for familiar things, things that will bring Lena comfort, “even though it’s completely improbable. I genuinely love board games, and I’m still the reigning champion of Pictionary. Earth math is still hard for me, but I’m actually very good at Kryptonian math.”

At this, Lena’s eyes widen as wondrously as a child’s on Christmas day. “What?”

“I’m actually really good at math—”

“No, no, no. _Kryptonian math_?”

“Oh my god,” Kara chuckles, “out of everything I’ve said, math is what you fixate on?”

Lena leans closer. “I want to learn every—last—theorem,” she says very seriously.

“Okay, you giant geek. Anything you want to know.”

The Luthor’s eyes, grave again, sear into Kara’s when she says, “I want to know everything.”

Feeling her own eyes begin to burn, Kara lets out a breath, and then pulls a ragged one back in. “I want you to know everything, too.”

“Zor-El,” Lena whispers, and then wipes her eyes. There’s a small smile on her face when she emerges again. “It suits you.”

Kara smiles, and though she wishes Lena wouldn’t step away, she lets her go when she does. Lena treads back to the desk, stands braced against it for a moment, then turns and leans against its edge, her expression thoughtful.

“What are you going to do about Maroni?” Kara asks, hoping the subject change to something more practical will be a relief for them both.

“Well,” Lena sighs, frank, “I guess I have to go to that meeting.”

That pulls Kara right out of every emotion except incredulity. “What?”

The Luthor lifts a weary hand, as if to show her lack of other options. “It’s our only lead.”

“Then, I’ll go.”

At this, Lena lets out her first genuine laugh, slipping off the desk and retreating back to her chair. “Oh sure,” she says, sitting down, “just Supergirl and Carmine Maloni, splitting a cannoli. That’s perfectly normal.”

Kara rolls her eyes. “I won’t go as Supergirl, I’ll just go as me.”

“You’re a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,” Lena points out, eyes narrowing into shards of jade, “he’ll know who you are.”

“Well, you can’t go,” Kara argues.

“Why not?”

“Well, because you’re—you’re… you.”

“I’m me?” Lena frowns, not following.

“You’re not exactly unrecognizable, Lena.”

“I’m not in the media nearly as much as _Supergirl—_ ”

“You’re the most beautiful billionaire on planet earth, everyone knows who you are.” The words are out of her mouth before she even really thinks about it. But the second Kara sees them register across Lena’s face in a series of startled blinks, her own eyes drop like blocks of lead to the floor, and she stares unblinking at the ground as if she could will it to swallow her whole.

Lena recovers first, though her voice is somewhat breathless when she says, “Well, Kate can’t go, she’s too well-known in Gotham.”

Kara thinks quickly, desperately, hellbent on thinking about anything other than what she just said. “I think Alex should go,” she says, landing on an answer. Lena looks on the brink of protesting, but Kara presses on, “She’d be perfect for this. She was a DEO agent, now she works as a contractor for a clandestine organization. She’s been undercover before.” Kara straightens, putting her hands on her hips. “Wow,” she marvels at herself, “this is actually a great idea. Alex would be perfect for this.”

From the indecipherable look on Lena’s face, Kara can tell she’s considering it. “You think she would agree to this?” she finally asks.

“You know she would.”

“Can you get her here tonight?”

“Yeah.”

Lena nods, looking genuinely impressed with Kara’s quick solution. “Okay. I think this is a good idea, too.”

Nodding, Kara begins digging in her pocket for her phone to call Alex, but freezes when Lena remarks casually, “So you think I’m beautiful?”

Kara blinks. Twice. Clears her throat. “I—well. That… that’s just—an—objective fact. Scientifically speaking.”

“ _Scientifically_.”

“Mhmm,” Kara nods, fidgeting, suddenly unsure how to stand normally with her arms. “Anna Wintour agrees with me, she said so in an interview.”

Lena’s smile deepens. She tilts her head. “So you read about me in the press, as well?”

The sly, arrogant grin on the Luthor’s face finally makes her give up. Kara smiles, embarrassed. Eyes drop just for a moment as she sighs, and then looks back up at Lena again, and still smiling, implores in a whisper, “Stop.”

The Luthor’s eyes dance, amused.

“I’m going to go call Alex,” Kara backs towards the door, swinging her arms so her fists knock together nervously, “and forget this part of our conversation.”

“Okay,” Lena hums, letting Kara lunge for an exit. But before she can get too far, the Luthor calls out quietly, “Kara.”

Turning, Kara finds Lena very still at the desk, as if in great debate over what to say next. But then—

“That dress you wore to the gala, the blue one?” Lena’s eyes drift up to her, and there’s an urgent, consuming intensity in her expression that gives Kara pause. “I’ve always thought you were beautiful,” she murmurs, soft, steady, “but you knocked the wind out of me that night.” The barest of smiles touches her lips, but her eyes don’t leave Kara’s, a quiet hunger there in her gaze. A smolder Kara feels roil deep in her stomach, courses across her skin like wildfire. Then, softly, “Just thought you should know.”

Kara’s throat is so dry, her mind so blank, all she does is stare.

“Let me know what Alex says,” Lena adds, “and try to get her here as soon as you can.” The instruction is like a held breath finally released. Kara can’t help but marvel at how smoothly she’s pivoted them out of the tension, the suffocating silence, born from a mutual admission of something. It makes her grateful.

“I will,” she says, and then she slips out the door.

###


	6. Underworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all :) So sorry for the long wait (again). In an attempt to update more regularly, there's going to be a slight change to the chapter structures. Usually, I try to incorporate at least one perspective from both Kara and Lena per chapter, but I think I might be able to get these written more quickly if I just do one per chapter. So they're going to be a bit shorter from here on out, but hopefully I'll get them out more quickly if the length is more manageable. Anyway, thank you for reading and your support, your comments are always welcome and mean so much. I love interacting with you guys.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Underworld**

**Luthor—**

The restaurant is dimly lit, almost dreamlike in the half-light from gas lamps mounted on the walls. The clink of silverware hitting glass, low voices and laughter, lend Bamonte’s an intimate atmosphere. Wood paneling makes the restaurant seem smaller than it is, gives it a deceptive warmth, for the patrons inside would make anyone’s blood run cold.

Carmine Maloni, surrounded by a county court judge, a few corporate suits, and several high-ranking police officers sit crowded around the largest table in the far corner, laughing raucously at something. Leaning forward, Lena peers closer at the tactical computer screen as she tries to scan the restaurant’s occupants for any other familiar faces. Kate Kane sits next to her, also looking closely. They sit inside a black van, surrounded by blinking computer screens, satellite communications boxes, and tactical gear, both outfitted in black. Given both hers and Kate’s high capacity for tech operations, they were assigned to van duty for this operation. While they ran tactical support, Alex was sent into Maloni’s well-known evening haunt with Nygma, disguised as a wealthy venture capitalist in a crisp black suit and a deceiving pair of glasses.

Kate had equipped Alex Danvers with a pair of glasses that held a camera that could stream a live feed back to their screens in the vehicle, parked a couple blocks away. An ingenious device leftover from Lucius Fox, useful for an undercover operation that only allowed one person to attempt infiltration.

A tense silence fills the van as both Lena and Kate watch the feed, eyes focused as Alex follows a waiter further into Bamonte’s, Edward Ngyma by her side.

“Coms check?” Alex’s voice patches quietly into Lena’s earpiece. She catches Kate’s gaze, who nods a confirmation.

“Loud and clear,” Lena says. “Back-up team, you read?”

“We are in position at a far table,” crackles Brainy’s voice, far too loud. “Adequately cuddled to appear as if we are deeply in love, but with optimized view of the target.”

“A little louder, Brainy,” Kara’s voice patches, “I don’t think the entire restaurant heard you.”

The sound of Kara’s voice makes Lena sit up straighter, breath catching. The night before, the Kryptonian argued her way into the field through the use of a disguise. Unwilling to let her sister venture into Gotham’s lair of kingpins and crime bosses without her, she insisted on wearing a dark wig, her glasses, and a dark blue dress tight enough to leave Lena’s throat a bit dry. This way, she could accompany Alex inside Bamonte’s with Brainy, disguised as a couple out for dinner. 

Lena hadn’t liked it. She had protested its recklessness, its risk, its gratuity. But in the end, with the proposed disguise, she realized she was grasping at straws. The reason she didn’t want Kara in that restaurant was selfish. Was contrary to Kara’s very nature, her selflessness, and so, in resignation, Lena fell quiet. But as a result of this surrender, she had barely slept that night. Had tossed and turned in her room in Wayne Manor, nightmares playing out before her eyes, all involving Kara being discovered, kidnapped, tortured. She spent the night staring at the ceiling, wondering if in the room down the hall, Kara also laid awake.

_I am Kara Zor-El._ The words echo in Lena’s mind, the devotion in Kara’s eyes as she spoke them. It practically makes her breathless.

Something had shifted since that night in Wayne Manor’s library. They orbited closer, as if a gravitational pull existed between them, stronger than before. It drew them together when they occupied spaces, instinctive, and overwhelming. Sometimes it hurt, that ache deep in Lena’s stomach, wanting Kara so badly, burning that deeply. When Kara was close, she could feel the tiny hairs on her arms stand on end, her breath leave faster, hyperaware, as if her body was reaching for her. And yet, something made her resist. She couldn’t quite put a name to it, but it was stronger than that pull, the ache. It felt like shame, masquerading as pride, for all she had done.

Shaking her head, Lena tries to focus on the feed. She takes a deep breath when Carmine’s table comes into higher resolution, and immediately her brow furrows.

“That’s Carlos Riviera,” she snarls, pointing to a swarthy man at one end. Kate leans closer. “I’m working with him on a water project in drought-prone areas of the Atacama. That piece of shit, what’s he doing here?”

“Mr. Maroni,” the waiter draws Lena’s attention back to their purpose, “your guests have arrived.”

Maroni’s eyes, black as obsidian, lift to Alex’s—and unwittingly, two other sets of eyes watching half a mile away. Dressed surprisingly plainly in a white button-down shirt and pair of slacks, he sits back in his seat, twisting the tiny gold ring on his pinky. “You’re late.” His voice sounds like crumbled cement, thick with a Brooklyn accent. He points to Alex. “And who the fuck is this?”

“This,” Nygma says, “is Lauren Bradley.”

Already Lena doesn’t like Nygma’s tone, the drawl, the apathy. The hint of betrayal.

“She’s an investor from San Francisco,” Nygma continues flatly, “has been hearing some rumors about our… undertaking in the desert.”

Maroni looks like he’s about to crack the bottle of Brunello on the table over Nygma’s head. “And why the fuck is she here?” he growls. “At a meeting that was meant to just be between you and me?”

“Alex, jump in,” Kate grabs the microphone, “or Nygma’s going to blow your cover.”

“Mr. Maroni,” Alex smiles, reacting quickly, “you have a lovely establishment here.” A flash of her hand appears on the screen, and Lena assumes she’s placed it on Nygma’s arm. “I managed to track Mr. Nygma down yesterday and after quite a bit of groveling, convinced him to bring me along to this meeting. I realize this is intrusive and unexpected, but I’ve learned you’re in a curious business arrangement with Miranda Tate and I’d like to make you a proposal that might…” The camera tilts side to side as Alex makes a show of thinking of the best way to put what she’s about to say. “Augment your forecasted dividends.”

A disbelieving smirk slowly crawls across Maroni’s face. “You think you can just waltz in here, interrupt my evening, and what…” He spreads his arms, sends a mocking glance to the other men around the table, “make me an offer I can’t refuse?”

A sneering laugh circles, but is cut off when Alex says promptly—

“Yes, I do.” Her voice is like steel. “Edward?” At her signal, Nygma lifts a briefcase up onto Maroni’s table. With a press of a few buttons, he opens the case and spins it so the crime boss can see the stacks of crisp American dollar bills inside.

A hush descends the table.

“You know how much money that is?” Alex asks.

Maroni tries to play it off and Lena smirks at the screen. The man has absolutely no poker face. He wants that money, he wants it more than a shark wants blood.

“A lot?” he shrugs.

“Ten million dollars. Cash, untraceable. And I can double it if you answer some questions.”

There’s a long pause as Maroni just stares at her. But when he gets a few nonplussed, albeit open, looks from his table companions, he looks back at Alex. “Let me get this straight,” he says, steepling his fingers. “I let you sit down, and you give me ten million dollars. Then, I answer some questions about Miranda Tate, and you give me ten million more?”

“That’s right.”

Maroni cocks his head, still not quite believing it. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“Nearby,” Alex answers quietly.

“You mind if I let one of my boys take a look at these?” He gestures to the bills. “Make sure they’re legit?”

“Of course.”

It suddenly strikes Lena that she never looked at the bills herself, she’d left that job to Kate. “Those are legit bills, right?” she asks her, a question which earns her a glare.

“I’m not an idiot, Lena.”

Relieved, Lena falls silent, watching one of Maroni’s men hold a bill up towards a gaslamp, but Kate continues to glower.

“I’m just as rich as you, you know.”

Watching as the man places a stack of bills back in the suitcase, Lena hisses, “Shh. And no, you’re not.”

“They’re real, boss,” says one of the suits. Flashes an uncertain look at Alex, right into the camera.

“Fuck, all right,” Maroni relents with a laugh. Gestures at an empty seat across from him. “Sit down.”

Alex slides into the booth seat opposite him.

Maroni peers at her for a long moment, before he smiles, “Easiest ten mil I ever made. So, what the fuck do you want?”

Alex takes a deep breath. “I know Miranda has employed you to import whatever she’s digging up in Gaza. I want to know how much she’s paying you for your services, among some other things about the element.”

“Careful, Alex,” Lena murmurs into the mic, watching the skepticism flicker across Maroni’s face. “Protect your cover, keep the discussion to money.”

“I’m not writing you a blank check for answers, Ms. Bradley. I’ve got obligations to uphold.”

“I understand.” Alex stays the tack. “How much is she paying you?”

Maroni drums his fingers on the table before he grunts, “Five hundred thousand a week.”

The camera oscillates as Alex shakes her head. “That’s not a lot. Surely you generate more revenue per week from your little opioid trade?”

“ _Alex_ ,” Kara reprimands over Coms.

Maroni’s eyes flash. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he sneers.

“Look,” Maroni grows bigger on the screen as Alex leans forward, “you’re getting ripped off, Mr. Maroni. You’re bearing all the risk importing this shit illegally for half a million a week? That’s highway robbery.”

“You know what they say—short term pain for long term gain.”

“Do you have any idea just how long term you’re going to be waiting for that payout? Getting this element to market is going to be an Everest. You’re going to have to go through customs and border protection, get all the relevant approvals from restricted goods and health and safety.” Alex waves a hand, emphasizing her point. “You’re looking down the barrel of probably five to ten years of red tape. And even if you’re able to get all the approvals, what if someone discovers the same element in a country with far fewer bureaucratic protections in place and gets it to market years before you? You lose your market share and halve your revenue. And that’s assuming that this element will capture a high price point. How well do you think it’s going to do on the market?”

In the beat of silence that follows, Kate leans towards Lena, eyes still on the feed, and mutters, “Did Alex go to business school or something?”

“I don’t know but I’m thinking about hiring her,” Lena replies, staring wide-eyed and impressed at the screen.

“Must be pretty damn good if you’re here,” Maroni replies, eyes narrowed.

“It could be years, maybe even a decade, before you see any dividends from a scheme like this. All the risk you’re taking bringing it in, I think you should be seeking greater compensation than five hundred k a week. I’m willing to provide that.”

Lifting a ringed hand, Maroni circles the edge of his wine glass with the tips of his fingers, thinking. “In return for what?” he finally asks.

“I want a share in it, but first, I want information. I want to know what it is.”

“Alex,” Kate warns, “we’re just trying to get shipment intel. Don’t provoke him.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Maroni concedes, more sincerely than Lena expected. She feels herself frown, a sentiment mirrored in the feed’s angle as the camera tilts. Alex doesn’t believe it either.

Maroni spreads his hands. “I don’t! No fuckin idea. I’ve got some weird details I’ve scraped together—”

“Tell me the weird details.”

Now it’s Maroni who’s head tilts disbelievingly. He gestures towards the suitcase, still sitting open between them. “I tell you what I know, you give me that other ten million?”

The camera nods. “That’s the deal.”

Maroni tosses his hands into the air. “All right,” he yields, twisting one of his cuff links. “All I know is it’s some kind of metal.”

A beat of silence. Then, “A _metal_?”

“Yeah. A metal. That’s all I got.”

“Ask about its properties,” Lena says quickly into the mic. “What are its distinguishing features? Does it have unique potential for intermetallic compounds—?

“Why is it unique?” Alex asks, cutting her off. “What’s its value?”

Maroni scratches his chin, bored. “I don’t know. All I’ve been told is it’s heavy as fuck.”

“Heavy?”

“Something screwy with the mass density ratio or some geological sciencey shit. I don’t know, that’s what she said on the phone.”

“Miranda Tate?”

“Yeah.”

“And she’s bringing a sample of it to the gala in Metropolis?”

Maroni blinks. A look of astonishment clouds his gaze, and then his jaw juts out, suspicion sparking. Something sinks in Lena’s stomach, and her hands tighten in her lap.

“How the fuck do you know about that?” he says slowly.

“Mr. Nygma here told me,” Alex tries to recover quickly. For a second, the feed flashes toward Edward Ngyma, who looks pale as death.

“Is that right?” Maroni murmurs. He looks over at Nygma, and even through the camera, Lena can see the violence building in his face. The fury.

The camera shifts over to Ngyma, who’s mouth is opening and closing, obviously trying to work out how to dig his way out of this. “I—” he starts, “I didn’t—”

“You know what Ms. Bradley,” Maroni says, low and dangerous, “all these questions, they make it seem like you know a little too much.” There’s an edge to his voice, a threat, like a bullet loaded in a chamber.

“Alex, there’s a gun in his coat pocket.” Kara’s voice is strained, she’s picked up on something. An elevated heartbeat. Twitching hands. It makes dread pour over Lena as she watches, unable to move.

“I don’t think you are who you say you are,” Maroni growls. “ _I think_ ,” he nods, eyes like black pits, “that you’re a spy. An imposter. And do you know what I do with imposters?”

It happens too fast for Lena to see over the feed, but pixels blur and suddenly, Maroni has erupted from his seat and a gunshot rings out over the restaurant. Ngyma topples from his chair, screaming in pain, and pandemonium explodes across the restaurant.

“I shoot them!” Maroni thunders, and the barrel of a handgun points right into the camera on Alex’s glasses.

“Alex!” Kara screams.

There’s another blur, and another gunshot. Lena reels back in her seat, gasping as the feed goes black. Kate seizes the mic, and shouts, “Alex? Do you read? Alex!”

There’s something blocking the camera. A silhouette. It moves slightly, and as Lena lunges back closer to the monitor, she realizes it’s a person. But she isn’t prepared when the person turns around, bloodied and panicked, to look at Alex.

The sound that Lena makes when she sees the blue eyes that flash into the camera, when she realizes it was Kara who was hit, is primal. An ancient sound released by those forced to watch those they love in torment. Stricken, Lena’s hands whiten as they grip the monitor, sees the feed tilt at a strange angle. There’s a loud crash and Maloni’s table goes hurtling across the restaurant. Another flash of more upturned tables, chaos over Coms. Breaking glass. Screams of terror. Gunshots. Brainy’s stunned face. And then everything blurs. Colors smear, an agonized wail sounds in Lena’s ears.

_Kara._

And then something heavy slams into the back of the van. There’s a sound of a struggle outside, and then—

“Lena,” screams Alex’s voice. “Kate, help! It’s Kara—she’s—she’s hurt!”

Leaping towards the tailgate doors, Kate shoves them open, Lena right behind her. When Kate jumps out, Lena takes in a scene that makes all the blood in her body sink to her feet. Alex and Brainy are sprawled on the pavement behind the van, tangled in the Kryptonian’s arms. But it’s the sight of Kara’s blood, pouring from a wound deep in her chest, that makes Lena pull in a rattling gasp. Panic scorches through her, and she drops from the van, rushing to Kara’s side. _Kryptonians don’t bleed. Not unless…_

The veins in Kara’s neck throb as she heaves for air, blue eyes foggy with pain.

“She got us out,” Alex pants. “She—she—flew us out.” Her hands shake so badly she can barely grip Kara as she tries to lift her. “She took the bullet. It’s kryptonite,” she whispers. Her dark eyes seek out Lena’s. “The bullet. It’s _kryptonite._ ”

For the briefest moment, a high ringing fills Lena’s ears, makes her vision smear as her mind tries to process what she just heard. _No. No, no._ Panic steals into her like a knife slipping between ribs. Instinct takes over and the world slams back into place.

“Kate, you drive,” Lena barks over her shoulder. “Get us back to the Manor!”

The vigilante springs into action, dashing towards the front of the van and throwing open the door so she can hop into the front seat. The engine roars to life a second later.

“Help me lift her into the back,” Alex instructs. And together with Brainy, Alex and Lena lift Kara into the van and drag her inside.

Pandemonium erupts as Kate peels away. Everything in motion. Brainy hauls the back doors shut as Alex rips into a box of medical gloves. Lena grabs an emergency surgical kit from the van’s medical bay and tears it open, handing Alex a pair of forceps and a retractor, all the while trying to keep her breathing even, trying to resist the dark, unthinkable paths her thoughts are trying to follow.

Kate takes a sharp turn, ripping around an onramp and then guns it onto a highway. One hand out for balance as the van tips, Alex uses her teeth to pull on the last glove and then drops to Kara’s side, who’s lying flat on her back, face as white as a sheet.

“I have to get it out,” Alex says, wiping away tears on her sleeve. “I have to get it out now or it will kill her. Lena,” she beckons her over, “stabilize her head. Hold her still. Talk to her, anything to keep her calm.”

Darting forward, Lena kneels so she can hold Kara’s head in her lap. As the van swerves sharply, dodging traffic, Kara wails in pain, the road rough beneath her. The sound strikes a snarl in Lena, who glances over her shoulder and snaps, “Take it easy, Kate!”

“Okay, Kara,” Alex pants, “I’m going in. This is going to hurt like hell but you have to stay still, okay?”

Eyes leaking tears, Kara nods, hands shaking uncontrollably by her sides. Kryptonite poison glows like molten ribbons of lightning in her skin. Fists clenched, she tries to keep still as Lena holds her, but the moment the forceps plunge into her skin, she screams, neck and spine bending in agony.

“Hold still,” Alex says through gritted teeth, clutching a small retractor.

Kara’s cries are almost too much for Lena to bear, and she has to clench her jaw to keep from lashing out at Alex, knowing deep down that it must be endured. So instead, she bows her head as close as she can to Kara’s, lips near her ear.

“Kara,” she murmurs, “you have to keep still. I’m here, your sister’s here. You’re going to be okay. It’s going to be okay _._ You just have to stay awake.” Her words grow choked as Kara pants beneath her. “I’m right here with you. I’m always with you.”

Her hands smooth her hair, touch her skin, stall, stumble, try to soothe as Kara writhes. Throat burning with grief, a film of tears shivers across Lena’s vision as she bends low again and presses her lips to Kara’s forehead. Then her temple. Her brow. As Alex works frantically to get the poison from Kara’s body, Lena whispers promises to her, pleas to live, to fight. She feels Kara grow still beneath her ministrations, feels her listening.

“I’m here with you,” she says, watching cloudy blue eyes search for hers. Dipping again, Lena kisses her hairline. “Stay with me.”

“Lena,” Kara chokes, lifting a hand weakly towards her face.

Lena grabs her fingers, unable to stop the tears that stream from her eyes. “I’m here,” she trembles, “I’ve got you. You have to fight it, Kara. Fight it—” She inhales sharply, blinking fast as she watches Kara’s eyes roll towards the back of her head and then close completely. Her head sags to the side.

“ _Kara_!” Eyes wild, Lena looks up and cries, “Alex, she’s going cold!”

“I’m working on it,” Alex snaps back, focused on the forceps almost an inch deep into Kara’s chest. Blood soaks her medical gloves, stains the blue of Kara’s dress.

“Try shifting your entry angle by fourteen degrees,” Brainy instructs over Alex’s shoulder. “With Kara’s cellular structure, the bullet might have cracked upon impact, splitting into multiple pieces. You cannot extract all of it at once.”

Alex adjusts, but after a few bated breaths, she sits back, head shaking. “Brainy, I can’t,” she gasps. “My hands—I’m—they’re shaking too much.”

“Move aside, Agent Danvers,” he says, kneeling. “Let me.” Taking the forceps, he begins working as Alex moves up to join Lena. She grips Kara’s other hand, the other coming to rest on Lena’s shoulder. Squeezes there.

Piece by shattered piece, Brainy digs out the kryptonite bullet. Despite Kara’s closed eyes, Lena speaks to her the whole way through. And when the last shard emerges, the van goes quiet.

Eyes wide, Lena waits for movement, for the deep breath in, watches Kara like she’s watching the universe itself take form. But it never comes. 

“Why isn’t she waking up?” she asks.

“She needs sun lamps,” Alex says, voice shaking. “We have to get her back to National City.”

“We’ll be back at the Manor in sixty seconds,” shouts Kate from the driver’s seat. “I’m headed straight for the cave, we can take the batplane!”

Lena can’t focus on anything but the unconscious Kryptonian, limp in her arms, hair like spun gold splayed across the floor. “I know you can hear me,” she murmurs, one hand under Kara’s neck, the other running up and down her arm, “keep fighting. Don’t you dare give up.” Her head tilts towards Kara’s face, and her eyes close when she whispers, “Don’t you dare leave me.”


	7. Solitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Got this one finished a lot quicker than I normally do. Hope you all enjoy! Things are gonna start heating up from here on out ;)

**Solitude**

**Zor-El—**

The world comes back slowly, like a memory, faded around the edges. The faint sound of traffic below. A siren in the distance. Laughter.

Kara’s brows knit over closed eyes.

Memories drift across her consciousness. Eavesdropping with Brainy in a dim restaurant. Alex at another table, sitting opposite a fiend. Lena’s voice in her ear, asking about compounds. Broken glass. A gunshot. The feel of it in her flesh, scraping up her veins, throbbing in her head, when the bullet hits her. Excruciating, shocking pain.

With a deep breath, Kara opens her eyes, and blinks. She’s in her own bed, the apartment quiet. One of the lights by the couch is glows warmly, and the faint flash of colors tells her the tv is on, muted. But there’s no one watching. In fact, when she concentrates her hearing, she realizes there’s no one else in the loft.

She has no idea how much time has passed, but it’s dark outside when she turns towards the window. Instinctively, her hand inches up towards her left collarbone, fingers pressing into the skin just below the bone, right where the bullet hit her. Beneath the touch, the muscle complains, aching dully. She lets her hand fall back to her side.

For a period of time, she just lies in bed. Quiet, meditative. Taps each finger to her thumb, over and over, an old habit her mother taught her to help calm her mind. For the first time in a while, she thinks of Krypton. Her mind lands on an old memory, watching Krypton’s moons, hung like golden lanterns seen through mist, orbiting in the early evening. Her father stands beside her, also watching, sipping a wine a color whose likeness she has never found on earth. When he looks down at her, Kara flinches away from the memory, inhaling sharply.

She sits up.

There are aches deep in her muscles, the last vestiges of kryptonite poisoning. It makes her sluggish as she swings her legs over the side of her bed and eases to her feet. Someone has put her in sweats and a loose band t-shirt that she immediately recognizes.

“Alex,” she smirks, stretching the shirt to get a better look at the LFO concert logo.

Humming Summer Girls under her breath, she spots a blue post-it note on her kitchen table and shuffles over to pick it up.

_Went to the store, be back in 45._

_-A_

_(please be awake when I get back)_

A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth as she sets the note down. Padding to the sink, Kara reaches up for a glass, fills it with water, and gulps it down. Then another. She feels her body brightening, waking up, and she puts the cup down on the counter. Eyes lifting to the living room, she watches as the news breezes silently through a weekend report. A Nor’easter is about to pummel New England again. Andrea Rojas appears briefly and Kara hums guiltily to herself. She’s probably one more fake sick day away from being fired.

A light rapping sounds at the door, startling her, and she turns. Thinking it strange Alex would knock, Kara treads barefoot to the door and opens it.

The second her eyes meet Kara’s, Lena drops the bag she’s holding. Her lips part to take in a deep, stricken breath. There’s a moment as they both stand, somewhat staggered by the presence of the other. But before Kara can even say her name, Lena is in her arms. She holds Kara desperately, face buried in her neck. Kara can feel her fingers curling into the back of her t-shirt, as if anchoring her to earth. For a moment, all Kara can do is blink, support Lena’s weight, startled breathless by the proximity. She sucks in a deep breath, holds it, and as she releases it, Kara sinks into the embrace. Folds in around Lena like sunlight spilling over dark, wild country that has waited out the night for the promise of warmth. She breathes in the faint smell of jasmine behind Lena’s ear, feels the wool of her coat against her cheek. For a moment, they’re still like this, until she manages to say something.

“Hi,” she smiles into Lena’s shoulder.

There’s a brief pause before the Luthor whispers, “You’re awake.”

“I’m awake.”

Lena’s grip doesn’t loosen. In fact, it almost tightens, and for a space of time, they just stand that way, caught in each other in the doorway. Then, Lena shifts in Kara’s arms.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, pulling away. She runs her hands beneath her eyes, suddenly appearing self-conscious.

“Don’t be sorry,” Kara says. Her hands remain on Lena’s arms, feather-light, but hesitant to lose contact completely. “Do you want to come inside?”

Grateful, Lena nods and ducks to pick up the bag she dropped, stuffed with what look to be financial reports.

“Light reading?” Kara teases as she closes the door behind Lena.

“Yeah,” the Luthor smiles weakly, “I’m painfully behind. But I wanted to be here with… you. I was going to make camp on the couch,” she says, dropping her bag on Kara’s dining table. Shrugging out of her coat, she folds it over the back of a chair and then turns to Kara again, eyes still glassy. “You were still asleep when I left.”

“You were here? Before?”

An infinitesimal wince flashes across Lena’s face. “Of course I was here,” she says quietly, as if it were a secret. “Alex and I have been trading shifts the last two days.”

At this, Kara’s eyes widen. “I was out for two days?”

Lena’s brow furrows, eyes dipping to look her up and down, a brief appraisal. “Did you just wake up?”

Giving her a nod, Kara tries to shake off how it rattles her—how long the kryptonite took to leave her system this time. “About ten minutes ago,” she says.

“Where’s Alex?”

“Grocery run.” Kara nods towards the table where the post-it sits. “She left a note.”

Lena shifts closer to a barstool and sits right on the edge. Her eyes don’t leave Kara’s. “How do you feel?”

“Good. Sun lamps work wonders.”

Lena nods quietly, eyes dropping to her hands as they tangle in her lap. As Kara studies her, she feels her breath grow shallower, remembering lying in the back of the van, cradled in Lena’s arms. The hard floor beneath her back; the kryptonite like needles in her veins. But perhaps most searing of all, the press of Lena’s lips against her skin. Over and over, like cool water rushing over a burn. She takes in a slight breath, and then adds softly, “And so do you, apparently.”

Lena looks up. “Me?” She sounds confused.

Perhaps she shouldn’t say it. Perhaps it would be too reckless to unearth words that had been spoken so intimately, summoned by desperation, by something neither of them had quite put to words yet. It almost feels like a betrayal. But as Kara stands before the Luthor, reliving the feel of her hands running over her skin, asking her to live, to fight, for _her_ , Kara wants her to know that in that struggle, she did. It was Lena that she held onto. And so, in the end, she can’t help it.

“I heard you,” Kara admits, throat dry. Watching Lena’s head tilt, she realizes the Luthor still doesn’t understand. “‘Don’t you dare leave me’,” she repeats softly.

Spoken aloud, the effect of those words is instantaneous. Lena’s hands tighten in her lap, a breath pushing past her lips, as if the admission made it impossible to breathe. Her throat dips as she tries to swallow, eyes as turbulent and unnavigable as an ocean in turmoil. The air grows thick, that magnetic pull towards Lena heaving deep in Kara’s chest as she looks at her, stronger than she’s ever felt it. She longs for Lena to rise, to close the gap between them and say the words she spoke to Kara when she lay on the edge of oblivion. But she doesn’t. Instead, Lena sits frozen, haunted, in silence. And so, Kara lets a sad smile cross her face and gives them both an escape when she says, “Even when I’ve been shot, you still boss me around.”

Lena huffs a laugh, and eyes Kara shyly. “I meant it.”

After a heavy beat, they both drop each other’s gazes, trying to regain bearings. Clarity. It’s Lena who seems to clear her head first. “I don’t know how useful that whole Gotham operation was,” she sighs, rubbing the palms of her hands along her pants. “We didn’t learn anything new. And it nearly got you killed.”

“Well, we learned _something._ We learned the element is metal, and it’s very heavy,” she says in a playful tone that indicates she knows how ridiculous it sounds.

Lena grimaces. “I could have guessed that.” Folding her arms across her chest, she fixes Kara beneath a worried look. “One thing we did learn that’s quite disturbing is that someone is supplying Sal Maroni with kryptonite bullets.”

Kara shifts her weight on her feet. Since waking up, she hadn’t gotten around to thinking about particular point too closely. “Yeah…”

“I went to Luthorcorp to make sure the leftover kryptonite I had was accounted for,” Lena tells her. “It was still in the vault, all 1.34 kilograms untouched.”

“That’s good.”

“Is it?” Lena asks in a tone that suggests it is definitely not good. “If all my kryptonite is accounted for, then in order for Maroni to have some, it means someone else has either figured out how to make it, or…”

Kara finishes her train of thought, “Someone’s found more.” She lifts a hand to rub her brow, mouth pressing into a grim line. “Oh, boy,” she mutters to herself. Her gaze lifts to Lena again, who sits at a loss on the barstool. “What’s the next move?” Kara asks.

Straightening, Lena takes in a deep breath, a sign Kara knows well—the Luthor is bracing to tell her something she knows she isn’t going to like. Kara feels her eyes narrow.

“The Metropolis gala that Miranda Tate’s hosting. I’m going to go.”

Dead silence is the only answer Lena gets for a long time.

Standing completely still, Kara chews on the inside of her cheek, until she finally blinks and says softly, “What?”

“Don’t look so scandalized, Kara, this is our only option. Surely, you see that? I’m going to attend, as myself.” She shrugs, expression frank. “My brother’s going to be there, so why shouldn’t I?”

Kara is still frozen where she stands, though now her hands have lifted slightly, held out towards the Luthor as if to stop her. “Lena, I know you want to stop Lex, head off whatever Leviathan is planning. But attending that gala is too dangerous. You can’t go.”

“I can’t?” Lena says repeats, a challenge in seaglass eyes.

“No!” Kara says, arms lifting to rest her fists on her hips. “You can’t.”

Anger flashes across the Luthor’s face like a lightning strike. “Kara, just because I let you in on this, doesn’t mean you’re suddenly going to be calling all the shots.”

“Well I sure as shit am calling this one,” Kara snaps back.

Jaw clenching, Lena pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes shut. “I don’t want to fight with you, not ten minutes after you’ve woken up.”

“Then don’t give me reason to fight! I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for this. You heard what Nygma said on the phone, you were standing right there.” Miranda’s words run through Kara’s mind like poison. _I’ll take care of it._ “There’s a hit out for you, Lena,” she practically pants. “Miranda Tate wants you dead, and you expect me to just watch you walk straight into the lion’s den?”

“That’s exactly what I expect you to do.”

“Well, I can’t. I can’t do that.”

The Luthor advances, a hand lifting to point accusingly at her. “You let Mon-El leave in a ship to stop the Daxamites,” she argues. “You let James become Guardian—”

Kara growls in frustration, hands rising to her hips as she starts pacing an angry, impatient line in front of her.

“You trained Nia to become Dreamer—”

“They aren’t _you_!” Kara exclaims.

Lena stiffens, eyes flashing. “Oh, so you can let all your other friends take risks, put their lives on the line to do what’s right, but not me—?”

She’s heard enough, she can’t stand it anymore. “ _Lena_ ,” Kara wails, rounding on her, “ _they’re not_ — _you_.” Panic scorches through her just at the thought of Lena getting hurt. A strange ringing fills her ears, stomach sick with the feeling of plummeting to the earth, completely out of control. Her voice trembles when she says, “God, don’t you get it?”

The desperation in Kara’s voice strikes a counterpoint in Lena, who goes still. Kara feels the Luthor reading her, eyes focused, hyper-attuned. “Get what?” she murmurs. Below the question, the confusion, is the barest, faintest tremor of hope, as if it dared not be any louder. Kara doesn’t miss it.

A hush steals in around them. Kara’s throat locks as she stares, as if to physically prevent her from saying more. But her heart pounds, rattling its cage, howling to be heard. It feels like the entire English language has fallen right out of her head before the immensity of what she wants to tell her. Everything she has ached to say.

“I’ve given you so many signs,” she whispers, “for so long.” Beneath her shirt, Kara hears the Luthor’s heartbeat quicken, breathing uneven. “Lena, I—”

An explosion of noise cuts Kara off and she reels backward, eyes wild. High-pitched, grating, it sounds like rusted metal scraping hard and fast against another surface, like a runaway train trying to slow down. Kara winces, head bending to one side.

“Oh, god, what is that?” she grits, looking over at Lena.

Lena’s staring at her like she’s suddenly lost it. “What’s what?” she asks, slipping off the barstool.

The noise amplifies, screaming in her mind, every terrible sound she’s ever heard tangled up to create a deafening, bloodcurdling racket. Stumbling backward, Kara hits the kitchen table and nearly topples over it, hands clapped over her ears.

“Kara!”

Lena is at her side in blink. Leaning over with her, the Luthor places a hand on Kara’s back, dark brows furrowed with concern.

And then, as quickly as it had come, the siren goes silent.

Releasing a gasp, Kara’s hands lower from her ears. “You couldn’t hear that?”

Alarmed, Lena shakes her head. “Hear what?”

It comes again. Louder this time, deeper. It pounds in Kara’s skull, so painful she cries out.

“ _That_!” she shouts, doubling over again.

“I don’t hear anything,” Lena panics.

Eyes wide and watering, Kara straightens, trying to find the source. She whirls around, scanning the loft, but there’s nothing present that could possibly be making this horrific screech. Turning towards the window, she tries to use her hearing, extending it outward for a direction, an origin point, anything.

“Kara, what’s wrong? Is it the kryptonite?”

Through the pulsing noise, Kara can barely think straight. But if she’s the only one who can hear it, she wonders if the source could be something attached to her _,_ something that could only reach _her_. As soon as her thoughts touch on the one thing that lies far to the north that could reach her like this, the noise goes silent, as if to confirm her suspicions.

“It’s not the kryptonite,” she pants. “I think it’s coming—from—the Fortress?”

“What’s coming?” Lena asks, placing a nervous hand on Kara’s shoulder. “The Fortress of Solitude?”

“Yes. I can’t explain how I know, but I know.”

The screech comes back again, slamming into Kara at such force that almost sends her to her knees. “Oh, my god!” she shouts, hands smashing over her ears, though she knows it’s no use. Bleary-eyed, she looks at Lena. “I have to go. I think the Fortress is trying to call me there.”

In the blink of an eye, she changes out of her sweats and Alex’s shirt and into a pair of jeans and a sweater.

But before she can lunge towards the window to open it, Lena shouts, “Kara, wait! I’m coming with you.”

“No, no way,” Kara gasps, backing away.

Lena trails her, eyes wild. “Why not?”

“I have no idea what I’m walking into.” She grabs her phone where it sits charging on the table. “It could be dangerous.”

“Then let me help!”

“No, I’m going alone.”

Lena’s eyes squeeze shut, just for a beat, before reopening to drill into Kara’s. “Kara you just recovered from two days’ worth of kryptonite poisoning,” she says, voice trembling, “you’re still weak. Please bring me with you.”

“Lena, I’m not going to put you—"

“Kara, please, I want to _be with you_!” Lena practically howls. “Please,” she begs, eyes blazing with conviction. “ _Please._ ”

It’s the force of Lena’s voice that makes Kara freeze and really look at her, see how on edge the Luthor is at the prospect of being left behind. Finally, she says gently, “Okay.” Lena’s entire body relaxes, relief coming out in a pent-up sigh. “Okay.” She waves a hand towards the table. “Put on your coat.”

As Lena dashes to the table to slip into the coat sleeves, the siren wails again in Kara’s head, and she braces a hand against the wall, trying to steady herself. A few seconds later and Lena is back at her side.

One hand on her head, Kara asks, “You ready?”

“Yes.” Lena motions with her arms. “Pick me up.”

Scooping her up, Kara shifts so they’re in front of an open window, and says through gritted teeth, “This is not going to be a smooth flight!” And then she lifts into the air.

##

Kara tries to fly steadily with Lena in her arms, but the violent screeching in her head makes it almost impossible. Every time it blares, she loses altitude at breathtaking pace and the Luthor buries her cries of terror deep in Kara’s shoulder.

Guided by the northern stars, they’re in Canada within ten minutes. Then Ellesmere Island, blanketed in snow. When Lena starts shivering, Kara tries to fly lower and faster, but by the time they land in the Arctic Circle outside the Fortress, she’s practically shaking with cold. Hurrying to pick up the gate key, the alarm screeches in Kara’s mind again, and she grits her teeth as she places it inside the lock and turns it.

The second they step foot inside the Fortress’s vaulted entryway, the brutal ringing in Kara’s head stops. Heaving a relieved sigh, she looks upwards towards the glacial dome above them, enjoying the quiet just for a beat. Then, she turns towards Lena, who’s trailing her hesitantly.

“It stopped,” she says. “Finally.”

Lena’s brows are furrowed, hands shoved deep her pockets to ward off the cold. “What exactly was ‘it’?”

Kara runs a hand through her hair, enjoying the quiet in her head for a second before she says, “I think it was the Fortress’s alarm system. Which I did not know it had.” Frowning, she gazes upward. “Kelex!” she calls. “Kelex, come down here!”

A low hum sounds somewhere deep in the Fortress, grows louder as the small, hovering robot zooms out of the frozen depths and into view.

“Kara Zor-El,” it intones. “How nice it is to see you in the Fortress of Solitude again. Who is your companion?”

“This is Lena Luthor, she’s to have access to all the Fortress’s memories and systems, do you understand?”

“Kara,” Lena protests.

Turning, she finds the Luthor looking at her wide-eyed, an objection in her expression.

“What?”

Looking between Kelex and Kara, Lena finally asks softly, “Are you sure you want to do that? Doesn’t the Fortress belong to Superman, too?”

“Yeah, but he gave Lois access.”

The words are out of her mouth before she fully realizes the implications they carry. Lena’s brows shoot upward, lips parting as she processes the comparison to Lois Lane. The barest, smallest smile pulls at one corner of her mouth.

Frozen, Kara stumbles over her next words. “And _also_ … his friend—” she nods, swallowing, “Chloe Sullivan.”

Eyes not leaving hers, Lena’s smile deepens.

Unable to stand the weight of the Luthor’s stare, Kara turns back to the robot, bobbing patiently behind her. “Kelex, I need you to change the Fortress’s alarm system.”

“Yes, Kara Zor-El. In what capacity would you like me to change it?”

“Just make it sound nicer. A soft ringing, like wind chimes or sleigh bells. Not something that’s going to make me think the planet is about to spin off its axis.”

“I understand.”

“Great.” As Kelex zooms off to reset the alarm, Kara faces Lena again, determined to look natural. “Let’s find out what that alarm was for,” she says a bit too casually.

“You don’t know?”

“No idea.”

“Isn’t that something Kelex could tell you?” Lena suggests with a knowing look.

A self-deprecating smile crosses Kara’s face at the obviousness of that solution, and she sighs. “Kelex,” she calls, watching Lena try to hide a perceptive smile by pretending to warm her hands. She turns away, and in the small break from Lena’s gaze, she mutters to herself, “Good god, Kara, get it together.”

The caretaker returns, and though it is incapable of generating facial expressions, Kara can almost sense its irritation at being summoned twice.

“Do you know why the Fortress’s alarm went off?” she asks it, placing her hands on her hips.

“Indeed, Kara Zor-El. Would you like me to show you?”

“Please.”

Drifting back towards the Fortress’s systems center, Kelex guides Kara and Lena until it hovers before a large platform, upon which glows a large, blue hologram of the earth. It rotates slowly, and as Kara nears, she sees several blinking dots scattered across the continents.

“The globe spontaneously activated an hour ago,” Kelex informs them. “Although no reason was explicitly given.”

“So you don’t know why?” Lena clarifies, eyes fixed on the globe as she circles it.

“No, Ms. Luthor.”

“What are these blinking dots?” she asks. “Are they significant locations?”

Kelex doesn’t answer, and in the silence, Kara watches the globe slowly spin, wondering what it could mean. As the Middle East appears in rotation, Kara steps close, eyes narrowing on a particular dot. “Lena,” she calls in an undertone. “This one’s in Gaza.”

The Luthor comes to stand beside her, green eyes fixed on the Gaza strip. There’s a long silence.

“Could just be random chance,” she finally suggests.

But the blinking signal has triggered something in Kara’s memory. A conversation in Wayne Manor’s Lead Room with Edward Ngyma. Or rather, the conversation she had overheard between him and Miranda Tate.

“When Nygma was on the phone with Miranda,” she says, “she told him they had a certain number of signals now.”

Lena’s jaw tightens. “Twelve.”

Catching each other’s eyes for just a second, they split to start counting, circling opposite directions around the globe until they meet on the other side. As they both point to the last dot, they murmur together, “Twelve.”

“Are these the locations of the signals she was talking about?” Lena asks, her tone disbelieving.

“I don’t really believe in coincidence,” Kara admits.

“Neither do I. But what could they be?”

Shaking her head, Kara paces around the globe again, at a complete loss. She has no idea what the signals could be, what they could be trying to communicate. And even further, how they could be picked up by the Fortress, of all things. Stopping, she places a hand on her hips as she gazes upward at the towering shards of ice, unable to put it together. The Fortress was only able to keep track of Kryptonian matter on earth: her, Clark, their ships, itself. But as she focuses on that, still staring upward, she recognizes the misstep in her thinking—the assumptions she made about the signals themselves. Their nature. A cold feeling slips down Kara’s spine, simmers at the tips of her fingers, the back of her neck. She feels her gaze grow distant as her conclusions carry her far away, across galaxies, all the way to a planet long extinct. _Krypton._

“Lena…” she murmurs, still faraway.

The Luthor turns. “What?”

“The Fortress,” Kara says slowly, “it’s not an earth monitoring system. It’s not of earth, it’s like a tiny piece of Krypton _on_ earth. It can’t detect changes in the earth’s atmosphere, it’s geology, it’s biogeochemistry.”

When she lifts her eyes to look at Lena, the Luthor is watching her very closely, drawn in by the quiet of Kara’s voice, the slinking dread.

“You’re going to have to lead me a little more,” she says.

“The Fortress can only sense Kryptonian matter,” Kara explains. “It can’t detect objects, organic or inorganic, that are of earth. So, in order for these signals,” she points to the globe, “to be appearing right now, they can’t be indigenous to earth.”

Lena’s head lifts slightly, eyes frozen as she absorbs that. Kara watches deductions and conclusions flicker across Lena’s face like clouds would skirt the sky, each one making her expression deepen with fear. “You’re saying that these signals,” she finally murmurs, “all twelve of them, and whatever they’re digging up in Gaza, because they’re appearing in the Fortress, then they must be…” Lena doesn’t finish the sentence. Her eyes are wide, irises switching rapidly between Kara’s, looking for confirmation.

Dread sinks into Kara’s stomach. Makes her voice low when she murmurs, “They’re Kryptonian.”


End file.
